FOR  LOVE 


BY 

FR  A  NCI  S 
LYNDE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 
MR.  &  MRS.  FRANK  M.   BEARING 


A  FOOL  FOR  LOVE 

By 

FRANCIS  LYNDE 


Author  of 

The  Grafters 

The  Master  of  Appleby,  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
THE  NEW  YORK  BOOK  CO. 


COPYRIGHT  1905 
THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

SEPTEMBER 


PS 


CONTENTS 

I  IN  WHICH  WE  TAKE  PASSAGE  ON  THE  LIMITED 

II  IN  WHICH  AN  ENGINE  is  SWITCHED 

III  IN  WHICH  AN  ITINERARY  is  CHANGED 

IV  THE  CRYSTALLINE  ALTITUDES 
V  THE  LANDSLIDE 

VI   THE  RAJAH  GIVES  AN  ORDER 
VII   THE  MAJESTY  OF  THE  LAW 
VIII    THE  GREEKS  BRINGING  GUTS 
tX   THE  BLOCK  SIGNAL 
X   SPIKED  SWITCHES 
XI   THE  EIGHT  ov  WAT 


754907 


A  FOOL  FOR  LOVE 


IN  WHICH  WE  TAKE  PASSAGE  ON  THE  LIMITED 

It  was  a  December  morning, — the  Missouri 
December  of  mild  temperatures  and  saturated 
skies, — and  the  Chicago  and  Alton's  fast  train, 
dripping  from  the  rush  through  the  wet  night, 
had  steamed  briskly  to  its  terminal  track  in 
the  Union  Station  at  Kansas  City. 

Two  men,  one  smoking  a  short  pipe  and  the 
other  snapping  the  ash  from  a  scented  cigar 
ette,  stood  aloof  from  the  hurrying  throngs  on 
the  platform,  looking  on  with  the  measured 
interest  of  those  who  are  in  a  melee  but  not 
of  it. 

"More  delay,"  r  ^id  the  cigarettist,  glancing 
at  his  watch.  "We  are  over  an  hour  late  now. 
Do  we  get  any  of  it  back  on  the  run  to  Den 
ver?" 

1 


A     FOOL     FOB,     LOVE 

The  pipe-smoker  shook  his  head. 

"Hardly,  I  should  say.  The  Limited  is  a 
pretty  heavy  train  to  pick  up  lost  time.  But 
it  won't  make  any  particular  difference.  The 
western  connections  all  wait  for  the  Limited, 
and  we  shall  reach  the  seat  of  war  to-morrow 
night,  according  to  the  Boston  itinerary." 

Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams  flung  away  the  un- 
burned  half  of  his  cigarette  and  masked  a 
yawn  behind  his  hand. 

"It's  no  end  of  a  bore,  Winton,  and  that  is 
the  plain,  unlacquered  fact,"  he  protested.  "I 
think  the  governor  owes  me  something.  I  wor 
ried  through  the  Tech  because  he  insisted  that 
I  should  have  a  profession ;  and  now  I  am  go 
ing  in  for  field  work  with  you  in  a  howling 
winter  wilderness  because  he  insists  on  a  prac 
tical  demonstration.  I  shall  ossify  out  there 
in  those  mountains.  It's  written  in  the  book." 

"Humph !  it's  too  bad  about  you,"  said  the 
other  ironically.  He  wa  a  fit  figure  of  a  man, 
clean-cut  and  vigorous,  from  -he  steadfast  out 
look  of  the  gray  eyes  and  the  firm,  smooth- 
shaven  jaw  to  the  square  finger-tips  of  the 


ON     THE     LIMITED 

strong  hands,  and  his  smile  was  of  good-na 
tured  contemp.  "As  you  say,  it  is  an  outrage 
on  filial  complaisa  >ce.  All  the  same,  with  the 
right-of-way  fight  in  prospect,  Quartz  Creek 
Canyon  may  not  prove  to  be  such  a  valley  of 
dry  bones  as —  Look  out,  there !" 

The  shifting-engine  had  cut  a  car  from  the 
rear  of  the  lately-arrived  Alton,  and  was  send 
ing  it  down  the  outbound  track  to  a  coupling 
with  the  Transcontinental  Limited.  Adams 
stepped  back  and  let  it  miss  him  by  a  hand's- 
breadth,  and  as  the  car  was  passing,  Winton 
read  the  name  on  the  paneling. 

"The  Rosemary:  somebody's  twenty-ton 
private  outfit.  That  cooks  our  last  chance  of 
making  up  any  lost  time  between  this  and  to 
morrow — " 

He  broke  off  abruptly.  On  the  square  rear 
observation  platform  of  the  private  car  were 
three  ladies.  One  of  them  was  small  and  blue- 
eyed,  with  wavy  little  puffs  of  snowy  hair 
peeping  out  under  her  dainty  widow's  cap. 
Another  was  small  and  blue-eyed,  with  wavy 
masses  of  flaxen  hair  caught  up  from  a  face 
3 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

which  might  have  served  as  a  model  for  the 
most  exquisite  bisque  figure  tha'  ever  came  out 
of  France.  But  Winton  s"  ,v  only  the  third. 

She  was  taller  than  either  of  her  companions 
— tall  and  straight  and  lithe ;  a  charming  em 
bodiment  of  health  and  strength  and  beauty : 
clear-skinned,  brown-eyed — a  very  goddess 
fresh  from  the  bath,  in  Winton's  instant  sum 
ming  up  of  her,  and  her  crown  of  red-gold 
hair  helped  out  the  simile. 

Now,  thus  far  in  his  thirty-year  pilgrimage 
John  Winton,  man  and  boy,  had  lived  the  in 
tense  life  of  a  working  hermit,  so  far  as  the 
social  gods  and  goddesses  were  concerned.  Yet 
he  had  a  pang — of  disappointment  or  point 
less  jealousy,  or  something  akin  to  both — 
when  Adams  lifted  his  hat  to  this  particular 
goddess,  was  rewarded  by  a  little  cry  of  recog 
nition,  and  stepped  up  to  the  platform  to  be 
presented  to  the  elder  and  younger  Bisques. 

So,  as  we  say,  Winton  turned  and  walked 

away  as  one  left  out,  feeling  one  moment  as 

though  he  had  been  defrauded  of  a  natural 

right,  and  deriding  himself  the  next,  as  a  sen- 

4 


ON     THE     LIMITED 

sible  man  should.  After  a  bit  he  was  able  to 
laugh  at  the  "sudden  attack,"  as  he  phrased 
it,  but  later,  when  he  and  Adams  were  settled 
for  the  day-long  run  in  the  Denver  sleeper, 
and  the  Limited  was  clanking  out  over  the 
switches,  he  brought  the  talk  around  with  a 
carefully  assumed  air  of  lack-interest  to  the 
party  in  the  private  car. 

"She  is  a  friend  of  yours,  then?"  he  said, 
when  Adams  had  taken  the  baited  hook  open- 
eyed. 

The  Technologian  modified  the  assumption. 

"Not  quite  in  your  sense  of  the  word,  I 
fancy.  I  met  her  a  number  of  times  at  the 
houses  of  mutual  friends  in  Boston.  She  was 
studying  at  the  Conservatory." 

"But  she  isn't  a  Bostonian,"  said  Winton 
confidently. 

"Miss  Virginia? — hardly.  She  is  a  Car- 
teret  of  the  Carterets;  Virginia-born-bred- 
and-named.  Stunning  girl,  isn't  she?" 

"No,"  said  Winton  shortly,  resenting  the 
slang  for  no  reason  that  he  could  have  set 
forth  in  words. 

5 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVJE 

Adams  lighted  another  of  the  scented  vil 
lainies,  and  his  clean-shaven  face  wrinkled  it 
self  in  a  slow  smile. 

"Which  means  that  she  has  winged  you  at 
sight,  I  suppose,  as  she  does  most  men."  Then 
he  added  calmly,  "It's  no  go." 

"What  is 'no  go'?" 

Adams  laughed  unfeelingly,  and  puffed 
away  at  his  cigarette. 

"You  remind  me  of  the  fable  about  the 
head-hiding  ostrich.  Didn't  I  see  you  staring 
at  her  as  if  you  were  about  to  have  a  fit  ?  But 
it  is  just  as  I  tell  you:  it's  no  go.  She  isn't 
the  marrying  kind.  If  you  knew  her,  she'd 
be  nice  to  you  till  she  got  a  good  chance  to 
flay  you  alive — " 

"Break  it  off!"  growled  Winton. 

"Presently.  As  I  was  saying,  she  would 
miss  the  chance  of  marrying  the  best  man  in 
the  world  for  the  sake  of  taking  a  rise  out  of 
him.  Moreover,  she  comes  of  old  Cavalier 
stock  with  an  English  earldom  at  the  back  of 
it,  and  she  is  inordinately  proud  of  the  fact; 
while  you — er — you've  given  me  to  under- 
6 


ON     THE     LIMITED 

stand  that  you  are  a  man  of  the  people, 
haven't  you?" 

Winton  nodded  absently.  It  was  one  of  his 
minor  fads  to  ignore  his  lineage,  which  ran 
decently  back  to  a  Colonial  governor  on  his 
father's  side,  and  to  assert  that  he  did  not 
know  his  grandfather's  middle  name — which 
was  accounted  for  by  the  very  simple  fact  that 
the  elder  Winton  had  no  middle  name. 

"Well,  that  settles  it  definitely,"  was  the 
Bostonian's  comment.  "Miss  Carteret  is  of 
the  sang  azur.  The  man  who  marries  her 
will  have  to  know  his  grandfather's  middle 
name — and  a  good  bit  more  besides." 

Winton's  laugh  was  mockingly  good-na 
tured. 

"You  have  missed  your  calling  by  some 
thing  more  than  a  hair's-breadth,  Morty. 
You  should  have  been  a  novelist.  Give  you  a 
spike  and  a  cross-tie  and  you'd  infer  a  whole 
railroad.  But  you  pique  my  curiosity.  Where 
are  these  American  royalties  of  yours  going 
in  the  Rosemary  ?" 

"To  California.  The  car  belongs  to  Mr. 
7 


A     FOOL      FOR      LOVE 

Somerville  Darrah,  who  is  vice-president  and 
manager  in  fact  of  the  Colorado  and  Grand 
River  road :  the  'Rajah,'  they  call  him.  He  is 
a  relative  of  the  Carterets,  and  the  party  is 
on  its  way  to  spend  the  winter  on  the  Pacific 
coast." 

"And  the  little  lady  in  the  widow's  cap :  is 
she  Miss  Carteret's  mother?" 

"Miss  Bessie  Carteret's  mother  and  Miss 
Virginia's  aunt.  She  is  the  chaperon  of  the 
party." 

Winton  was  silent  while  the  Limited  was 
roaring  through  a  village  on  the  Kansas  side 
of  the  river.  When  he  spoke  again  it  was  not 
of  the  Carterets ;  it  was  of  the  Carterets'  kins 
man  and  host. 

"I  have  heard  somewhat  of  the  Rajah,"  he 
said  half-musingly.  "In  fact,  I  know  him,  by 
sight.  He  is  what  the  magazinists  are  fond 
of  calling  an  'industry  colonel,'  a  born  leader 
who  has  fought  his  way  to  the  front.  If  the 
Quartz  Creek  row  is  anything  more  than  a  stiff 
bluff  on  the  part  of  the  C.  G.  R.  it  will  be 
quite  as  well  for  us  if  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah 
8 


ON     THE     LIMITED 

is  safely  at  the  other  side  of  the  conti 
nent — and  well  out  of  ordinary  reach  of  the 
wires." 

Adams  came  to  attention  with  a  half-heart 
ed  attempt  to  galvanize  an  interest  in  the  busi 
ness  affair. 

"Tell  me  more  about  this  mysterious  jangle 
we  are  heading  for,"  he  rejoined.  "Have  I 
enlisted  for  a  soldier  when  I  thought  I  was 
only  going  into  peaceful  exile  as  assistant  en 
gineer  of  construction  on  the  Utah  Short 
Line?" 

"That  remains  to  be  seen."  Winton  took  a 
leaf  from  his  pocket  memorandum  and  drew  a 
rough  outline  map.  "Here  is  Denver,  and 
here  is  Carbonate,"  he  explained.  "At  present 
the  Utah  is  running  into  Carbonate  this  way 
over  the  rails  of  the  C.  G.  R.  on  a  joint 
track  agreement  which  either  line  may  ter 
minate  by  giving  six  months'  notice  of  its  in 
tention  to  the  other.  Got  that?" 

"To  have  and  to  hold,"  said  Adams.  "Go 
on." 

"Well,  on  the  first  day  of  September  the  C. 
9 


A     FOOL     FOR     I,  O  V  E 

G.  R.  people  gave  die  Utah  management  no 
tice  to  quit." 

"They  are  bloated  monopolists,"  said  Ad 
ams  sententiously.  "Still  I  don't  see  why 
there  should  be  any  scrapping  over  the  line  in 
Quartz  Creek  Canyon." 

"No?  You  are  not  up  in  monopolistic 
methods.  In  six  months  from  September  first 
the  Utah  people  will  be  shut  out  of  Carbonate 
business,  which  is  all  that  keeps  that  part  of 
their  line  alive.  If  they  want  a  share  of  that 
traffic  after  March  first,  they  will  have  to  have 
a  road  of  their  own  to  carry  it  over." 

"Precisely,"  said  Adams,  stifling  a  yawn. 
"They  are  building  one,  aren't  they  ?" 

"Trying  to,"  Winton  amended.  "But,  un 
fortunately,  the  only  practicable  route 
through  the  mountains  is  up  Quartz  Creek 
Canyon,  and  the  canyon  is  already  occupied 
by  a  branch  line  of  the  Colorado  and  Grand 
River." 

"Still  I  don't  see  why  there  should  be  any 
scrap." 

"Don't  you?  If  the  Rajah's  road  can  keep 
10 


ON     THE     LIMITED 

the  new  line  out  of  Carbonate  till  the  six 
months  have  expired,  it  will  have  a  monopoly 
of  all  the  carrying  trade  of  the  camp.  By 
consequence  it  can  force  every  shipper  in  the 
district  to  make  iron-clad  contracts,  so  that 
when  the  Utah  line  is  finally  completed  it 
won't  be  able  to  secure  any  freight  for  a  year, 
at  least." 

"Oho!  that's  the  game,  is  tt?  I  begin  to 
savvy  the  burro:  that's  the  proper  phrase, 
isn't  it?  And  what  are  our  chances?" 

"We  have  about  one  in  a  hundred,  as  near 
as  I  could  make  out  from  Mr.  Callowell's 
statement  of  the  case.  The  C.  G.  R.  peo 
ple  are  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  obstruct 
us  in  the  canyon.  If  they  can  delay  the  work 
a  little  longer,  the  weather  will  do  the  rest. 
With  the  first  heavy  snow  in  the  mountains, 
which  usually  comes  long  before  this,  the  Utah 
will  have  to  put  up  its  tools  and  wait  till  next 
summer." 

Adams  lighted  another  cigarette. 

"Pardon  me  if  I  seem  inquisitive,"  he  said, 
"but  for  the  life  of  me  I  can't  understand 
11 


A     POOL     FOR     LOVE 

what  these  obstructionists  can  do.  Of  course, 
they  can't  use  force." 

Winton's  smile  was  grim.  "Can't  they? 
Wait  till  you  get  on  the  ground.  But  the 
first  move  was  peaceable  enough.  They  got 
an  injunction  from  the  courts  restraining  the 
new  line  from  encroaching  on  their  right  of 
way." 

"Which  was  a  thing  that  nobody  wanted  to 
do,"  said  Adams,  between  inhalations. 

"Which  was  a  thing  the  Utah  had  to  do," 
corrected  Winton.  "The  canyon  is  a  narrow 
gorge — a  mere  slit  in  parts  of  it.  That  is 
where  they  have  us." 

"Oh,  well,"  returned  Adams,  "I  suppose 
we  took  an  appeal  and  asked  to  have  the  in 
junction  set  aside?" 

"We  did,  promptly ;  and  that  is  the  present 
status  of  the  fight.  The  appeal  decision  has 
not  yet  been  handed  down ;  and  in  the  mean 
time  we  go  on  building  railroad,  incurring  all 
the  penalties  for  contempt  of  court  with  every 
shovelful  of  earth  moved.  Do  you  still  think 
you  will  be  in  danger  of  ossifying?" 


ON     THE     LIMITED 

Adams  let  the  question  rest  while  he  asked 
one  of  his  own. 

"How  do  you  come  to  be  mixed  up  in  it, 
Jack  ?  A  week  ago  some  one  told  me  you  were 
going  to  South  America  to  build  a  railroad  in 
the  Andes.  What  switched  you?" 

Winton  shook  his  head.  "Fate,  I  guess; 
that  and  a  wire  from  President  Callowell  of 
the  Utah  offering  me  this.  Chief  of  Construc 
tion  Evarts,  in  charge  of  the  work  in  Quartz 
Creek  Canyon,  said  what  you  said  a  few  min 
utes  ago — that  he  had  not  hired  out  for  a  sol 
dier.  He  resigned,  and  I'm  taking  his  berth." 

Adams  rose  and  buttoned  his  coat. 

"By  all  of  which  it  seems  that  we  two  are 
in  for  a  good  bit  more  than  the  ossifying 
exile,"  he  remarked.  And  then:  "I  am  go 
ing  back  into  the  Rosemary  to  pay  my  re 
spects  to  Miss  Virginia  Carteret.  Won't  you 
come  along?" 

"No,"  said  Winton,  more  shortly  than  the 
invitation  warranted;  and  the  other  went  his 
way  alone. 


13 


n 


"  'Scuse  me,  sah ;  private  cyah,  sah." 

It  was  the  porter's  challenge  in  the  vestibule 
of  the  Rosemary.  Adams  found  a  card. 

"Take  that  to  Miss  Carteret — Miss  Vir 
ginia  Carteret,"  he  directed,  and  waited  till 
the  man  came  back  with  his  welcome. 

The  extension  table  in  the  open  rear  third 
of  the  private  car  was  closed  to  its  smallest 
dimensions,  and  the  movable  furnishings  were 
disposed  about  the  compartment  to  make  it  a 
comfortable  lounging  room. 

Mrs.  Carteret  was  propped  among  the 
cushions  of  a  divan  with  a  book.  Her  daugh 
ter  occupied  the  undivided  half  of  a  tete- 
a-tete  chair  with  a  blond  athlete  in  a  clerical 
coat  and  a  reversed  collar.  Miss  Virginia  was 
sitting  alone  at  a  window,  but  she  rose  and 
came  to  greet  the  visitor. 
14 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

"How  good  of  you  to  take  pity  on  us !"  she 
said,  giving  him  her  hand.  Then  she  put  him 
at  one  with  the  others:  "Aunt  Martha  you 
have  met;  also  Cousin  Bessie.  Let  me  pre 
sent  you  to  Mr.  Calvert:  Cousin  Billy,  this  is 
Mr.  Adams,  who  is  responsible  in  a  way  for 
many  of  my  Boston-learned  gaucheries." 

Aunt  Martha  closed  the  Jwok  on  her  finger. 
"My  dear  Virginia!"  she  protested  in  mild 
deprecation;  and  Adams  laughed  and  shook 
hands  with  the  Reverend  William  Calvert  and 
made  Virginia's  peace  all  in  the  same  breath. 

"Don't  apologize  for  Miss  Virginia,  Mrs. 
Carteret.  We  were  very  good  friends  in  Bos 
ton,  chiefly,  I  think,  because  I  never  objected 
when  she  wanted  to — er — to  take  a  rise  out  of 
me."  Then  to  Virginia :  "I  hope  I  don't  in 
trude?" 

"Not  in  the  least.  Didn't  I  just  say  you 
were  good  to  come?  Uncle  Somerville  tells  us 
we  are  passing  through  the  famous  Golden 
Belt, — whatever  that  may  be, — and  recom 
mends  an  easy-chair  and  a  window.  But  I 
haven't  seen  anything  but  stubble-fields — dis- 
15 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

mally  wet  stubble-fields  at  that.     Won't  you 
sit  down  and  help  me  watch  them  go  by  ?" 

Adams  placed  a  chair  for  her  and  found  one 
for  himself. 

"  'Uncle  Somerville' — am  I  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah?" 

Miss  Virginia's  laugh  was  non-committal. 

"Quien  sabe?"  she  queried,  airing  her  one 
Westernism  before  she  was  fairly  in  the  longi 
tude  of  it.  "Uncle  Somerville  is  a  law  unto 
himself.  He  had  a  lot  of  telegrams  and  things 
at  Kansas  City,  and  he  is  locked  in  his  den 
with  Mr.  Jastrow,  dictating  answers  by  the 
dozen,  I  suppose." 

"Oh,  these  industry  colonels !"  said  Adams. 
"Don't  their  toilings  make  you  ache  in  sheer 
sympathy  sometimes?" 

"No,  indeed,"  was  the  prompt  rejoinder; 
"I  envy  them.  It  must  be  fine  to  have  large 
things  to  do,  and  to  be  able  to  do  them." 

"Degenerate  scion  of  a  noble  race!"  jested 
Adams.     "What  ancient  Carteret  of  them  all 
would  have  compromised  with  the  necessities 
by  becoming  a  captain  of  industry  ?" 
16 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

"It  wasn't  their  metier,  or  the  metier  of 
their  times,"  said  Miss  Virginia  with  convic 
tion.  "They  were  sword-soldiers  merely  be 
cause  that  was  the  only  way  a  strong  man 
could  conquer  in  those  days.  Now  it  is  differ 
ent,  and  a  strong  man  fights  quite  as  nobly  in 
another  field — and  deserves  quite  as  much 
honor." 

"Think  so?  I  don't  agree  with  you — as  to 
the  fighting,  I  mean.  I  like  to  take  things 
easy.  A  good  club,  a  choice  of  decent  the 
aters,  the  society  of  a  few  charming  young 
women  like — " 

She  broke  him  with  a  mocking  laugh. 

"You  were  born  a  good  many  centuries  too 
late,  Mr.  Adams;  you  would  have  fitted  so 
beautifully  into  decadent  Rome." 

"No — thanks.  Twentieth-century  America, 
with  the  commercial  frenzy  taken  out  of  it,  is 
good  enough  for  me.  I  was  telling  Winton  a 
little  while  ago — " 

"Your  friend  of  the  Kansas  City  station 
platform?"  she  interrupted.    "Mightn't  you 
introduce  us  a  little  less  informally  ?" 
17 


A.     FOOL     FOR     :LOV,S 

"Beg  pardon,  I'm  sure — yours  and  Jack's : 
Mr.  John  Winton,  of  New  York  and  the  world 
at  large,  familiarly  known  to  his  intimates — 
and  they  are  precious  few — as  'Jack  W.'  As 
I  was  about  to  say — " 

But  she  seemed  to  find  a  malicious  satisfac 
tion  in  breaking  in  upon  him. 

"  'Mr.  John  Winton' :  it's  a  pretty  name, 
as  names  go,  but  it  isn't  as  strong  as  he  is. 
He  is  an  'industry  colonel,'  isn't  he?  He  looks 
it." 

The  Bostonian  avenged  himself  at  Win- 
ton's  expense  for  the  unwelcome  interrup 
tion. 

"So  much  for  your  woman's  intuition,"  he 
laughed.  "Speaking  of  idlers,  there  is  your 
man  to  the  dotting  of  the  *i';  a  dilettante 
raised  to  the  nth  power." 

Miss  Carteret's  short  upper  lip  curled  in 
undisguised  scorn. 

"I  like  men  who  do  things,"  she  asserted 

'with  pointed  emphasis;  whereupon  the  talk 

drifted  eastward  to  Boston,  and  Winton  was 

ignored  until  Virginia,  having  exhausted  the 

18 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

reminiscent  vein,  said,  "You  are  going  on 
through  to  Denver?" 

"To  Denver  and  beyond,"  was  the  reply. 
"Winton  has  a  notion  of  hibernating  in  the 
mountains — fancy  it;  in  the  dead  of  winter  1 
— and  he  has  persuaded  me  to  go  along.  He 
sketches  a  little,  you  know." 

"Oh,  so  he  is  an  artist?"  said  Virginia,  with 
interest  newly  aroused. 

"No,"  said  Adams  gloomily,  "he  isn't  an 
artist — isn't  much  of  anything,  I'm  sorry  to 
say.  Worse  than  all,  he  doesn't  know  his 
grandfather's  middle  name.  Told  me  so  him 
self." 

"That  is  inexcusable — in  a  dilettante,"  said 
Miss  Virginia  mockingly.  "Don't  you  think 
so?" 

"It  is  inexcusable  in  any  one,"  said  the 
Technologian,  rising  to  take  his  leave.  Then,, 
as  a  parting  word:  "Does  the  Rosemary  set 
its  own  table?  or  do  you  dine  in  the  dining- 
car?" 

"In  the  dining-car,  if  we  have  one.  Uncle 
Somerville  lets  us  dodge  the  Rosemary?s  cook 
19 


A     POOL     FOB-     LOVE 

whenever  we  can,"  was  the  answer;  and  with 
this  bit  of  information  Adams  went  his  way 
to  the  Denver  sleeper. 

Finding  Winton  in  his  section,  poring  over 
a  blue-print  map  and  making  notes  thereon 
after  the  manner  of  a  man  hard  at  work, 
Adams  turned  back  to  the  smoking-compart- 
ment. 

Now  for  Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams  the  salt  of 
life  was  a  joke,  harmless  or  otherwise,  as  the 
tree  might  fall.  So,  during  the  long  after 
noon  which  he  wore  out  in  solitude,  there  grew 
up  in  him  a  keen  desire  to  see  what  would  be 
fall  if  these  two  whom  he  had  so  grotesquely 
misrepresented  each  to  the  other  should  come 
together  in  the  pathway  of  acquaintanceship. 

But  how  to  bring  them  together  was  a  prob 
lem  which  refused  to  be  solved  until  chance 
pointed  the  way.  Since  the  Limited  had 
lost  another  hour  during  the  day  there  was  a 
rush  for  the  dining-car  as  soon  as  the  an 
nouncement  of  its  taking-on  had  gone  through 
•the  train.  Adams  and  Winton  were  of  this 
rush,  and  so  were  the  members  of  Mr.  Somer- 
20 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

ville  Darrah's  party.  In  the  seating  the  party 
was  separated,  as  room  at  the  crowded  tables 
could  be  found ;  and  Miss  Virginia's  fate  gave 
her  the  unoccupied  seat  at  one  of  the  duet 
tables,  opposite  a  young  man  with  steadfast 
gray  eyes  and  a  firm  jaw. 

Winton  was  equal  to  the  emergency,  or 
thought  he  was.  Adams  was  still  within  call 
and  he  beckoned  him,  meaning  to  propose  an 
exchange  of  seats.  But  the  Bostonian  mis 
understood  wilfully. 

"Most  happy,  I'm  sure,"  he  said,  coming 
instantly  to  the  rescue.  "Miss  Carteret,  my 
friend  signals  his  dilemma.  May  I  present 
him?" 

Virginia  smiled  and  gave  the  required  per 
mission  in  a  word.  But  for  Winton  self-pos 
session  fled  shrieking. 

"Ah — er — I  hope  you  know  Mr.  Adams 
well  enough  to  make  allowances  for  his — for 
his — "  He  broke  down  helplessly  and  she  had 
to  come  to  his  assistance. 

"For  his  imagination  ?"  she  suggested.     "I 
do,  indeed ;  we  are  quite  old  friends." 
21 


A     FOOL     FOE,     LOVE 

Here  was  "well  enough,"  but  Winton  was  a 
man  and  could  not  let  it  alone. 

"I  should  be  very  sorry  to  have  you  think 
for  a  moment  that  I  would — er — so  far  forget 
myself,"  he  went  on  fatuously.  "What  I  had 
in  mind  was  an  exchange  of  seats  with  him.  I 
thought  it  would  be  pleasanter  for  you ;  that 
is,  I  mean,  pleasanter  for — "  He  stopped 
short,  seeing  nothing  but  a  more  hopeless  in 
volvement  ahead ;  also  because  he  saw  signals 
of  distress  or  of  mirth  flying  in  the  brown 
eyes. 

"Oh,  please !"  she  protested  in  mock  humil 
ity.  "Do  leave  my  vanity  just  the  tiniest  lit 
tle  cranny  to  creep  out  of,  Mr.  Winton.  I'll 
promise  to  be  good  and  not  bore  you  too  des 
perately." 

At  this,  as  you  would  imagine,  the  pit  of 
utter  self-abasement  yawned  for  Winton,  and 
he  plunged  headlong,  holding  the  bill  of  fare 
wrong  side  up  when  the  waiter  asked  for  his 
dinner  order,  and  otherwise  demeaning  him 
self  like  a  man  taken  at  a  hopeless  disadvan 
tage.  She  took  pity  on  him. 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

"But  let's  ignore  Mr.  Aaams,"  she  went  on 
sweetly.  "I  am  much  more  interested  in  this," 
touching  the  bill  of  fare.  "Will  you  order 
for  me,  please  ?  I  like — " 

When  she  had  finished  the  list  of  her  lik 
ings,  Winton  was  able  to  smile  at  his  lapse  into 
the  primitive,  and  gave  the  dinner  order  for 
two  with  a  fair  degree  of  coherence.  After 
that  they  got  on  better.  Winton  knew  Bos 
ton,  and,  next  to  the  weather,  Boston  was  the 
safest  and  most  fruitful  of  the  commonplaces. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  not  immortal ;  and  Winton 
was  just  beginning  to  cast  about  for  some 
other  safe  riding  road  for  the  shallop  of  small 
talk  when  Miss  Carteret  sent  it  adrift  with 
malice  aforethought. 

It  was  somewhere  between  the  entries  and 
the  fruit,  and  the  point  of  departure  was  Bos 
ton  art. 

"Speaking  of  art,  Mr.  Winton,  will  you 
tell  me  how  you  came  to  think  of  sketching  in 
the  mountains  of  Colorado  at  this  time  of 
year?  I  should  think  the  cold  would  be  posi 
tively  prohibitive  of  anything  like  that." 
23 


Winton  stared — open-mouthed,  it  is  to  be 
feared. 

"I — I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  stammered, 
with  the  inflection  which  takes  its  pitch  from 
blank  bewilderment. 

Miss  Virginia  was  happy.  Dilettante  he 
might  be,  and  an  unhumbled  man  of  the  world 
as  well;  but,  to  use  the  Reverend  Billy's 
phrase,  she  could  make  him  "sit  up." 

"I  beg  yours,  I'm  sure,"  she  said  demurely. 
"I  didn't  know  it  was  a  craft  secret." 

Winton  looked  across  the  aisle  to  the  table 
where  the  Technologian  was  sitting  opposite 
a  square-shouldered,  ruddy-faced  gentleman 
with  fiery  eyes  and  fierce  white  mustaches,  and 
shook  a  figurative  fist. 

"Pd  like  to  know  what  Adams  has  been  tell 
ing  you,"  he  said.  "Sketching  in  the  moun 
tains  in  midwinter!  that  would  be  decidedly 
original,  to  say  the  least  of  it.  And  I  think 
I  have  never  done  an  original  thing  in  all  my 
life." 

For  a  single  instant  the  brown  eyes  looked 
their  pity  for  him ;  generic  pity  it  -was,  of  the 

*i 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

kind  that  mounting  souls  bestow  upon  the 
stagnant.  But  the  subconscious  lover  in  Win- 
ton  made  it  personal  to  him,  and  it  was  the 
lover  who  spoke  when  he  went  on. 

"That  is  a  damaging  admission,  is  it  not? 
I  am  sorry  to  have  to  make  it — to  have  to  con 
firm  your  poor  opinion  of  me." 

"Did  I  say  anything  like  that?"  she  pro 
tested. 

"Not  in  words ;  but  your  eyes  said  it,  and  I 
know  you  have  been  thinking  it  all  along. 
Don't  ask  me  how  I  know  it:  I  couldn't  ex 
plain  it  if  I  should  try.  But  you  have  been 
pitying  me,  in  a  way — you  know  you  have." 

The  brown  eyes  were  downcast.  Frank  and 
free-hearted  after  her  kind  as  she  was,  Vir 
ginia  Carteret  was  finding  it  a  new  and  singu 
lar  experience  to  have  a  man  tell  her  baldly  at 
their  first  meeting  that  he  had  read  her  inmost 
thought  of  him.  Yet  she  would  not  flinch  or 
go  back. 

"There  is  so  much  to  be  done  in  the  world, 
and  so  few  to  do  the  work,"  she  pleaded  in  ex 
tenuation. 

25 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

"And  Adams  has  told  you  that  I  am  not 
one  of  the  few  ?  It  is  true  enough  to  hurt." 

She  looked  him  fairly  in  the  eyes.  "What  is 
lacking,  Mr.  Winton — the  spur?" 

"Possibly,"  he  rejoined.  "There  is  no  one 
near  enough  to  care,  or  to  say  'Well  done !' ' 

"How  can  you  tell?"  she  questioned  mus 
ingly.  "It  is  not  always  permitted  to  us  to 
hear  the  plaudits  or  the  hisses — happily,  I 
think.  Yet  there  are  always  those  standing 
by  who  are  ready  to  cry  'Io  triumphe!'  and 
mean  it,  when  one  approves  himself  a  good 
soldier." 

The  coffee  had  been  served,  and  Winton  sat 
thoughtfully  stirring  the  lump  of  sugar  in  his 
cup.  Miss  Carteret  was  not  having  a  monop 
oly  of  the  new  experiences.  For  instance,  it 
had  never  before  happened  to  John  Winton 
to  have  a  woman,  young,  charming,  and  alto 
gether  lovable,  read  him  a  lesson  out  of  the 
book  of  the  overcomers. 

He  smiled  inwardly  and  wondered  what  she 
would  say  if  she  could  know  to  what  battle 
field  the  drumming  wheels  of  the  Limited 
26 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

were  speeding  him.  Would  she  be  loyal  to  her 
mentorship  and  tell  him  he  must  win,  at  what 
ever  the  cost  to  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  and  his 
business  associates?  Or  would  she,  woman 
like,  be  her  uncle's  partizan  and  write  one 
John  Winton  down  in  her  blackest  book  for 
daring  to  oppose  the  Rajah? 

He  assured  himself  it  would  make  no  jot  of 
difference  if  he  knew.  He  had  a  thing  to  do, 
and  he  was  purposed  to  do  it  strenuously,  in 
flexibly.  Yet  in  the  inmost  chamber  of  his 
heart,  where  the  barbarian  ego  stands  un 
abashed  and  isolate  and  recklessly  contemp 
tuous  of  the  moralities  minor  and  major,  lie 
saw  the  birth  of  an  influence  which  inevita 
bly  must  henceforth  be  desperately  reckoned 
with. 

Given  a  name,  this  new-born  life-factor  was 
love ;  love  barely  awakened,  and  as  yet  no  more 
than  a  masterful  desire  to  stand  well  in  the 
eyes  of  one  woman.  None  the  less,  he  saw  the 
possibilities :  that  a  time  might  come  when  this 
woman  would  have  the  power  to  intervene; 
would  make  him  hold  his  hand  in  the  business 
27 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

affair  at  the  very  moment,  mayhap,  when  he 
should  strike  the  hardest. 

It  was  a  rather  unnerving  thought,  and 
when  he  considered  it  he  was  glad  that  their 
ways,  coinciding  for  the  moment,  would  pres 
ently  go  apart,  leaving  him  free  to  do  battle 
as  an  honest  soldier  in  any  cause  must. 

The  Rosemary  party  was  rising,  and  Win- 
ton  rose,  too,  folding  the  seat  for  Miss  Vir 
ginia  and  carefully  reaching  her  wrap  from 
the  rack. 

"I  am  so  glad  to  have  met  you,"  she  said, 
giving  him  the  tips  of  her  fingers  and  going 
back  to  the  conventionalities  as  if  they  had 
never  been  ignored. 

But  the  sincerity  in  Winton's  reply  tran 
scended  the  conventional  form  of  it. 

"Indeed,  the  pleasure  has  been  wholly  mine, 
I  assure  you.  I  hope  the  future  will  be  kind 
to  me  and  let  me  see  more  of  you." 

"Who  knows?"  she  rejoined,  smiling  at  him 
level-eyed.  "The  world  has  been  steadily 
growing  smaller  since  Shakespeare  called  it 
'narrow.' " 


A  If     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

He  caught  quickly  at  the  straw  of  hope. 
"Then  we  need  not  say  good-by  ?" 

"No;  let  it  be  auf  Wiedersehen,"  she  said; 
and  he  stood  aside  to  allow  her  to  join  her 
party, 

Two  hours  later,  when  Adams  was  reading 
in  his  section  and  Winton  was  smoking  his 
short  pipe  in  the  men's  compartment  and 
thinking  things  unspeakable  with  Virginia 
Carteret  for  a  nucleus,  there  was  a  series  of 
sharp  whistle-shrieks,  a  sudden  grinding  of 
the  brakes,  and  a  jarring  stop  of  the  Limited 
— a  stop  not  down  on  the  time-card. 

Winton  was  among  the  first  to  reach  the 
head  of  the  long  train.  The  halt  was  in  a  lit 
tle  depression  of  the  bleak  plain,  and  the  train 
men  were  in  conference  over  a  badly-derailed 
engine  when  Winton  came  up.  A  vast  herd 
of  cattle  was  lumbering  away  into  the  dark 
ness,  and  a  mangled  carcass  under  the  wheels 
of  the  locomotive  sufficiently  explained  the  ac 
cident. 

"Well,  there's  only  the  one  thing  to  do," 
was  the  engineer's  verdict.    "That's  for  some- 
3  29 


A     TOOI.     FOB     1.0  V  E 

body  to  mog  back  to  Arroyo  to  wire  for  the 
wreck-wagon." 

"Yes,  by  gum!  and  that  means  all  night," 
growled  the  conductor. 

There  was  a  stir  in  the  gathering  throng  of 
half-alarmed  and  all-curious  passengers,  and  a 
red-faced,  white-mustached  gentleman,  whose 
soft  southern  accent  was  utterly  at  variance 
with  his  manner,  hurled  a  question  bolt-like  at 
the  conductor. 

"All  night,  you  say,  seh?  Then  we  miss 
ouh  Denver  connections?" 

"You  can  bet  to  win  on  that,"  was  the  curt 
reply. 

"Damn!"  said  the  ruddy-faced  gentleman; 
and  then  in  a  lower  tone :  "I  beg  your  pahdon, 
my  deah  Virginia;  I  was  totally  unaware  of 
your  presence." 

Winton  threw  off  his  overcoat. 

"If  you  will  take  a  bit  of  help  from  an  out 
sider,  I  think  we  needn't  wait  for  the  wreck 
ing-car,"  he  said  to  the  dubious  trainmen. 
"It's  bad,  but  not  so  bad  as  it  looks.  What 
do  you  say  ?" 

30 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

Now,  as  every  one  knows,  it  is  not  in  the  na 
ture  of  operative  railway  men  to  brook  inter 
ference  even  of  the  helpful  sort.  But  they  are 
as  quick  as  other  folk  to  recognize  the  man  in 
essence,  as  well  as  to  know  the  clan  slogan 
when  they  hear  it.  Winton  did  not  wait  for 
objections,  but  took  over  the  command  as  one 
in  authority. 

"Think  we  can't  do  it?  I'll  show  you.  Up 
on  the  tank,  one  of  you,  and  heave  down  the 
jacks  and  frogs.  We'll  have  her  on  the  steel 
again  before  you  can  say  your  prayers." 

At  the  hearty  command,  churlish  reluctance 
vanished  and  everybody  lent  a  willing  hand. 
In  two  minutes  the  crew  of  the  Limited  knew 
it  was  working  under  a  master.  The  frogs 
were  adjusted  under  the  derailed  wheels,  the 
jack-screws  were  braced  to  lift  and  push 
with  the  nicest  accuracy,  and  all  was  ready  for 
the  attempt  to  back  the  engine  in  trial.  But 
now  the  engineer  shook  his  head. 

"I   ain't   the   artist   to   move   her   gently 
enough  with  all  that  string  o'  dinkeys  behind 
her,"  he  said  unhopefully. 
31 


A     FOOL     FOB,     LOVE 

"No?"  said  Winton.  "Come  up  into  the 
cab  with  me  and  I'll  show  you  how."  And  he 
climbed  to  the  driver's  footboard  with  the 
doubting  engineer  at  his  heels. 

The  reversing-lever  went  over  with  a  clash ; 
the  air  whistled  into  the  brakes ;  and  Winton 
began  to  ease  the  throttle  open.  The  steam 
sang  into  the  cylinders,  the  huge  machine 
trembling  like  a  living  thing  under  the  hand 
of  a  master. 

Slowly  and  by  almost  imperceptible  de 
grees  the  life  of  the  pent-up  boiler  power 
crept  into  the  pistons  and  out  through  the 
connecting  rods  to  the  wheels.  With  the  first 
thrill  of  the  gripping  tires  Winton  leaned 
from  the  window  to  watch  the  derailed  trucks 
climb  by  half-inches  up  the  inclined  planes  of 
the  frogs. 

At  the  critical  instant,  when  the  entire 
weight  of  the  forward  half  of  the  engine  was 
poising  for  the  drop  upon  the  rails,  he  gave 
the  precise  added  impulse.  The  big  ten- 
wheeler  coughed  hoarsely  and  spat  fire;  the 
driving-wheels  made  a  quick  half-turn  back- 


AN     ENGINE     SWITCHED 

ward ;  and  a  cheer  from  the  onlookers  marked 
the  little  triumph  of  mind  over  matter.  ^ 

Winton  found  Miss  Carteret  holding  his 
overcoat  when  he  swung  down  from  the  cab, 
and  he  fancied  her  enthusiasm  was  tempered 
with  something  remotely  like  embarrassment. 
But  she  suffered  him  to  walk  back  to  the  pri 
vate  car  beside  her ;  and  in  this  sudden  retreat 
from  the  scene  of  action  he  missed  hearing  the 
comments  of  his  fellow  craftsmen. 

"You  bet,  he's  no  'prentice,"  said  the  fire 
man. 

"Not  much!"  quoth  the  engineer.  "He's 
an  all-round  artist,  that's  about  what  he  is. 
Shouldn't  wonder  if  he  was  the  travelin'  en 
gineer  for  some  road  back  in  God's  country." 

"Travelin'  nothing!"  said  the  conductor. 
"More  likely  he's  a  train-master,  'r  p'raps  a 
bigger  boss  than  that.  Call  in  the  flag,  Jim, 
and  we'll  be  getting  a  move." 

Oddly  enough,  the  comment  on  Winton  did 
not  pause  with  the  encomiums  of  the  train 
crew.  When  the  Limited  was  once  more  rush 
ing  on  its  way  through  the  night,  and  Vir- 
33 


A     POOL     FOE,     LOVE 

ginia  and  her  cousin  were  safe  In  the  privacy 
of  their  state-room,  Miss  Carteret  added  her 
word. 

"Do  you  know,  Bessie,  I  think  it  was  Mr. 
Adams  who  scored  this  afternoon?"  she  said. 

"How  so?"  inquired  la  petite  Bisque,  who 
was  too  sleepy  to  be  over-curious. 

"I  think  he  'took  a  rise'  out  of  me,  as  he 
puts  it.  Mr.  Winton  is  precisely  all  the  kinds 
of  man  Mr.  Adams  said  he  wasn't." 


in 


IN   WHICH   AN   ITINERARY  IS    CHANGED 

It  was  late  breakfast  time  when  the  Trans 
continental  Limited  swept  around  the  great 
curve  in  the  eastern  fringe  of  Denver,  paused 
for  a  registering  moment  at  "yard  limits," 
and  went  clattering  in  over  the  switches  to 
come  to  rest  at  the  end  of  its  long  westward 
run  on  the  in-track  at  the  Union  Depot. 

Having  wired  ahead  to  have  his  mail  meet 
him  at  the  yard  limits  registering  station, 
Winton  was  ready  to  make  a  dash  for  the  tele 
graph  office  the  moment  the  train  stopped. 

"That  is  our  wagon,  over  there  on  the  nar 
row-gage,"  he  said  to  Adams,  pointing  out 
the  waiting  mountain  train.  "Have  the  por 
ter  transfer  our  dunnage,  and  I'll  be  with  you 
as  soon  as  I  can  send  a  wire  or  two." 

On  the  way  across  the  broad  platform  he 
saw  the  yard  crew  cutting  out  the  Rosemary, 
35 


A     FOOL      FOR     LOVE 

and  had  a  glimpse  of  Miss  Virginia  clinging 
to  the  hand-rail  and  enjoying  enthusiastically, 
he  fancied,  her  first  view  of  the  mighty  hills 
to  the  westward. 

The  temptation  to  let  the  telegraphing  wait 
while  he  went  to  say  good  morning  to  her  was 
strong,  but  he  resisted  it  and  hastened  the 
more  for  the  hesitant  thought.  Nevertheless, 
when  he  reached  the  telegraph  office  he  found 
Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  and  his  secretary  there 
ahead  of  him,  and  he  observed  that  the  ex 
plosive  gentleman  who  presided  over  the  des 
tinies  of  the  Colorado  and  Grand  River  ap 
peared  to  be  in  a  more  than  usually  volcanic 
frame  of  mind. 

Now  Winton,  though  new  to  the  business  of 
building  railroads  for  the  Utah  Short  Line, 
was  not  new  to  Denver  or  Colorado.  Hence 
when  the  Rajah,  followed  by  his  secretarial 
shadow,  had  left  the  office,  Winton  spoke  to 
the  operator  as  to  a  friend. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  Mr.  Darrah, 
Tom  ?  He  seems  to  be  uncommonly  vindictive 
this  morning." 

36 


AN     ITINERABY     CHANGED 

The  man  of  dots  and  dashes  nodded. 

"He's  always  crankier  this  time  than  he  was 
the  other.  He's  a  holy  terror,  the  Rajah  is. 
I  wouldn't  work  on  his  road  for  a  farm  down 
East — not  if  my  job  took  me  within  cussing 
distance  of  him.  Bet  a  hen  worth  fifty  dol 
lars  he  is  up  in  Mr.  Colbert's  office  right  now, 
raising  particular  sand  because  his  special  en 
gine  wasn't  standing  here  ready  to  snatch  his 
private  car  on  the  fly,  so's  to  go  on  without 
losing  headway." 

Winton  frowned  thoughtfully,  and  he  let 
his  writing  hand  pause  while  he  said,  "So  he 
travels  special  from  Denver,  does  he?" 

"On  his  own  road? — well,  I  should  smile. 
Nothing  is  too  good  for  the  Rajah;  or  too 
quick,  when  he  happens  to  be  in  a  hurry.  I 
wonder  he  didn't  have  the  T.  C.  pull  him  spe 
cial  from  Kansas  City." 

Winton  handed  in  his  batch  of  telegrams 
and  went  his  way  reflective. 

What  was  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah's  par 
ticular  rush?  As  set  forth  by  Adams,  the 
plans  of  the  party  in  the  Rosemary  contem- 
37 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

plated  nothing  more  hasty  than  a  leisurely 
trip  to  the  Pacific  coast — a  pleasure  jaunt 
with  a  winter  sojourn  in  California  to 
lengthen  it.  Why,  then,  this  sudden  change 
from  Limited  regular  trains  to  unlimited 
specials?  Was  there  fresh  news  from  the  seat 
of  war  in  Quartz  Creek  Canyon?  Winton 
thought  not.  In  that  case  he  would  have  had 
his  budget  as  well ;  and  so  far  as  his  own  ad 
vices  went,  matters  were  still  as  they  had  been. 
A  letter  from  the  Utah  attorneys  in  Carbon 
ate  assured  him  that  the  injunction  appeal 
was  not  yet  decided,  and  another  from  Chief 
of  Construction  Evarts  concerned  itself  main 
ly  with  the  major's  desire  to  know  when  he 
was  to  be  relieved. 

But  if  Winton  could  have  been  an  eaves 
dropper  behind  the  door  of  Superintendent 
Colbert's  office  on  the  second  floor  of  the  Union 
Depot,  his  doubts  would  have  been  resolved 
instantly. 

The  telegraph  operator's  guess  went 
straight  to  the  mark.  Mr.  Darrah  was  "rais 
ing  particular  sand"  because  his  wire  order 
38 


AN     ITINERANT     CHANGED 

for  a  special  engine  had  not  been  obeyed  to 
the  saving  of  the  ultimate  second  of  time.  But 
between  his  objurgations  on  that  score,  he  was 
rasping  out  questions  designed  to  exhaust  the 
chief  clerk's  store  of  information  concerning 
the  status  of  affairs  at  the  seat  of  war. 

"Will  you  inform  me,  seh,  why  I  wasn't 
wired  that  this  beggahly  appeal  was  go 
ing  against  us?"  he  demanded  wrathfully. 
"What's  that  you  say,  seh?  Don't  tell  me  you 
couldn't  know  what  the  decision  of  the  cou't 
was  going  to  be  before  it  was  handed  down: 
that's  what  you-all  are  heah  for — to  find  out 
these  things!  And  what  is  all  this  about 
Majah  Eva'ts  resigning,  and  the  Utah's  send 
ing  East  for  a  professional  right-of-way 
fighteh  to  take  his  place?  Who  is  this  new 
man?  Don't  know?  Dammit,  seh!  it's  your 
business  to  know!  Now  when  do  you  faveh 
me  with  my  engine?" 

Thus  the  Rajah;  and  the  chief  clerk,  him 
self  known  from  end  to  end  of  the  Colorado 
and  Grand  River  as  a  queller  of  men,  could 
only  point  out  of  the  window  to  where  the 


A     FOOL      FOR     LOVE 

Rosemary  stood  engined  and  equipped  for  the 
race,  and  say  meekly:  "I'm  awfully  sorry 
you've  been  delayed,  Mr.  Darrah ;  very  sorry, 
indeed.  But  your  car  is  ready  now.  Shall  I 
go  along  to  be  on  hand  if  you  need  me  ?" 

"No,  seh!"  stormed  the  irate  master;  and 
the  chief  clerk's  face  became  instantly  ex 
pressive  of  the  keenest  relief.  "You  stay 
right  heah  and  see  that  the  wires  to  Qua'tz 
Creek  are  kept  open — wide  open,  seh.  And 
when  you  get  an  ordeh  from  me — for  an  en 
gine,  a  regiment  of  the  National  Gyua'd,  or 
a  train-load  of  white  elephants — you  fill  it. 
Do  you  understand,  seh  ?" 

Meantime,  while  this  scene  was  getting  it 
self  enacted  in  the  superintendent's  office,  a 
mild  fire  of  consternation  was  alight  in  the 
gathering  room  of  the  Rosemary.  As  we  have 
guessed,  Winton's  packet  of  mail  was  not  the 
only  one  which  was  delivered  by  special  ar 
rangement  that  morning  to  the  incoming 
Limited  at  the  yard  registering  station. 
There  had  been  another,  addressed  to  Mr. 
Somerville  Darrah;  and  when  he  had  opened 
40 


AN     ITINERARY     CHANGED 

it  there  had  been  a  volcanic  explosion  and  a 
hurried  dash  for  the  telegraph  office,  as  re 
corded. 

Sifted  out  by  the  Reverend  Billy,  and  ex 
plained  by  him  to  Mrs.  Carteret  and  Bessie, 
the  firing  spark  of  the  explosion  appeared  to 
be  some  news  of  an  untoward  character  from 
a  place  vaguely  designated  as  "the  front." 

"It  seems  that  there  is  some  sort  of  a  right- 
of-way  scrimmage  going  on  up  in  the  moun 
tains  between  our  road  and  the  Utah  Short 
Line,"  said  the  young  man.  "It  was  carried 
into  the  courts,  and  now  it  turns  out  that  the 
decision  has  gone  against  us." 

"How  perfectly  horrid!"  said  Miss  Bessie. 
"Now  I  suppose  we  shall  have  to  stay  here  in 
definitely  while  Uncle  Somerville  does  things." 
And  placid  Mrs.  Carteret  added  plaintively: 
"It's  too  bad!  I  think  they  might  let  him 
have  one  little  vacation  in  peace." 

"Who  talks  of  peace?"  queried  Virginia, 
driven  in  from  her  post  of  vantage  on  the  ob 
servation  platform  by  the  smoke  from  the 
switching-engine.  "Didn't  I  see  Uncle  Somer- 
41 


A     FOOL     FOR     ]LOVE 

ville  charging  across  to  the  telegraph  office 
with  war  written  out  large  in  every  line  of 
him?" 

"I  am  afraid  you  did,"  affirmed  the  Rever 
end  Billy ;  and  thereupon  the  explanation  was 
rehearsed  for  Virginia's  benefit. 

The  brown  eyes  flashed  militant  sympathy. 

"Oh,  I  wish  Uncle  Somerville  would  go  to 
'the  front,'  wherever  that  is,  and  take  us 
along !"  she  cried.  "It  would  be  ever  so  much 
better  than  California." 

The  Reverend  William  laughed ;  and  Aunt 
Martha  put  in  her  word  of  expostulation,  as 
in  duty  bound. 

"Why,  my  dear  Virginia — the  idea !  You 
don't  know  in  the  least  what  you  are  talking 
about,  I  have  been  reading  in  the  papers 
about  these  right-of-way  troubles,  and  they 
are  perfectly  terrible.  One  report  said  they 
were  arming  the  laboring  men,  and  another 
said  the  militia  might  have  to  be  called  out." 

"Well,  what  of  it?"  said  Virginia,  with  all 
the  hardihood  of  youth  and  unknowledge. 
"It's  something  like  a  burning  building:  one 
42 


AN     ITINERARY     CHANGED 

doesn't  want  to  be  hard-hearted  and  rejoice 
over  other  people's  misfortunes;  but  then,  if 
it  has  to  burn,  one  would  like  to  be  there  to 
see." 

Miss  Bessie  put  a  stray  lock  of  the  flaxen 
hair  up  under  its  proper  comb. 

"I'm  sure  I  prefer  California  and  the 
orange-groves  and  peace,"  she  asserted. 
"Don't  you,  Cousin  Billy?" 

What  Mr.  Calvert  would  have  replied  is  no 
matter  for  this  history,  since  at  this  precise 
moment  the  Rajah  came  in,  "coruscating,"  as 
Virginia  put  it,  from  his  late  encounter  with 
the  superintendent's  chief  clerk. 

"Give  them  the  word  to  go,  Jastrow,  and 
let's  get  out  of  heah,"  he  commanded.  And 
when  the  secretary  had  vanished  the  Rajah 
made  his  explanations  to  all  and  sundry.  "Fve 
been  obliged  in  a  manneh  to  change  ouh  itin 
erary.  Anotheh  company  is  trying  to  fault 
us  up  in  Qua'tz  Creek  Canyon,  and  I  am  in  a 
meashuh  compelled  to  be  on  the  ground.  We 
shall  be  delayed  only  a  few  days,  I  hope;  at 
the  worst  only;  until  the  first  snow-storm 
43 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

comes ;  and,  in  the  meantime,  Calif  o'nia  won't 
run  away." 

Virginia  clapped  her  hands. 

"Then  we  are  really  to  go  to  'the  front'  and 
see  a  right-of-way  fight?  Oh,  won't  that  be 
perfectly  intoxicating !" 

The  Rajah  glared  at  her  as  if  she  had 
said  something  incendiary.  The  picturesque 
aspect  of  the  struggle  had  evidently  not  ap 
pealed  to  him.  But  he  smiled  grimly  when  he 
said :  "Now  there  spoke  the  blood  of  the  fight 
ing  Carterets:  hope  you  won't  change  your 
mind,  my  deah."  And  with  that  he  dived  into 
his  working  den,  pushing  the  lately-returned 
secretary  in  ahead  of  him. 

Virginia  linked  arms  with  Bessie,  the  flaxen- 
haired,  when  the  wheels  began  to  turn. 

"We  are  off,"  she  said.  "Let's  go  out  on 
the  platform  and  see  the  last  of  Denver." 

It  was  while  they  were  clinging  to  the  hand 
rail,  and  looking  back  upon  the  jumble  of  rail 
way  activities  out  of  which  they  had  just 
emerged  that  the  Rosemary,  gaining  headway, 
overtook  another  moving  train  running 
44 


AN     ITINERARY     CHANGED 

smoothly  on  a  track  parallel  to  that  upon 
which  the  private  car  was  speeding.  It  was 
the  narrow-gage  mountain  connection  of  the 
Utah  line,  and  Winton  and  Adams  were  on  the 
rear  platform  of  the  last  car.  So  it  chanced 
that  the  four  of  them  were  presently  waving 
their  adieus  across  the  wind-blown  interspace. 
In  the  midst  of  it,  or  rather  at  the  moment 
when  the  Rosemary,  gathering  speed  as  the 
lighter  of  the  two  trains,  forged  ahead,  the 
Rajah  came  out  to  light  his  cigar. 

He  took  in  the  little  tableau  of  the  rear  plat 
forms  at  a  glance,  and  when  the  slower  train 
was  left  behind  asked  a  question  of  Virginia. 

"Ah — wasn't  one  of  those  two  the  young 
gentleman  who  called  on  you  yestehday  after 
noon,  my  deah?" 

Virginia  admitted  it. 

"Could  you  faveh  me  with  his  name?" 

"He  is  Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams,  of  Boston." 

"Ah-h!  and  his  friend — the  young  gentle 
man  who  laid  his  hand  to  ouh  plow  and  put 
the  engine  on  the  track  last  night?" 

"He  is  Mr.  Winton — a — an  artist,  I  be- 
4  45 


A     FOOL     FOIl     LOVE 

lieve;  at  least,  that  is  what  I  gathered  from 
what  Mr.  Adams  said  of  him." 

Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  laughed,  a  slow  lit 
tle  laugh,  deep  in  his  chest. 

"Bless  youh  innocent  soul — he  a  picchuh- 
paintehi?  Not  in  a  thousand  yeahs,  my  deah 
Virginia.  He  is  a  railroad  man,  and  a  right 
good  one  at  that.  Faveh  me  with  the  name 
again;  Winteh,  did  you  say?" 

"No;  Winton— Mr.  John  Winton." 

"D-d-devil !"  gritted  the  Rajah,  smiting  the 
hand-rail  with  his  clenched  fist.  "Hah !  I  beg 
your  pahdon>  my  deahs — a  meah  slip  of  the 
tongue."  And  then,  to  the  full  as  savagely : 
"By  Heaven,  I  hope  that  train  will  fly  the 
track  and  ditch  him  before  eveh  he  comes  with 
in  ordering  distance  of  the  work  in  Qua'tz 
Creek  Canyon !" 

"Why,  Uncle  Somerville — how  vindictive !" 
cried  Virginia.  "Who  is  he,  and  what  has  he 
donei?" 

"He  is  Misteh  John  Winton,  as  you  in 
formed  me  just  now ;  one  of  the  brainiest  con 
structing  engineers  in  this  entiah  country,  and 
46 


AN      ITINERARY      CHANGED 

the  hardest  man  in  this  or  any  otheh  country 
to  down  in  a  right-of-way  fight — that's  who 
he  is.  And  it's  not  what  he's  done,  my  deah 
Virginia,  it's  what  he  is  going  to  do.  If  I 
can't  get  him  killed  up  out  of  ouh  way," — 
but  here  Mr.  Darrah  saw  the  growing  terror 
in  two  pairs  of  eyes,  and  realizing  that  he  was 
committing  himself  before  an  unsympathetic 
audience,  beat  a  hasty  retreat  to  his  strong 
hold  at  the  other  end  of  the  Rosemary. 

"Well!"  said  the  flaxen-haired  Bessie, 
catching  her  breath.  But  Virginia  laughed. 

"I'm  glad  I'm  not  Mr.  Winton,"  she  said. 


47 


IV 


THE   CRYSTAI/LINE  ALTITUDES 

Morning  in  the  highest  highlands  of  the 
Rockies,  a  morning  clear,  cold,  and  tense,  with 
a  bell-like  quality  in  the  frosty  air  to  make 
the  cracking  of  a  snow-laden  spruce-bough  re 
sound  like  a  pistol-shot.  For  Denver  and  the 
dwellers  on  the  eastern  plain  the  sun  is  an 
hour  high;  but  the  hamlet  mining-camp  of 
Argentine,  with  its  dovecote  railway  station 
and  two-pronged  siding,  still  lies  in  the  steel- 
blue  depths  of  the  canyon  shadow. 

Massive  mountains,  dark  green  to  the  tim 
ber  line  and  dazzling  white  above  it,  shut  in 
the  narrow  valley  to  right  and  left.  A  mimic 
torrent,  ice-bound  in  the  quieter  pools,  drums 
and  gurgles  on  its  descent  midway  between 
two  railway  embankments,  the  one  to  which 
the  station  and  side-tracks  belong,  old  and 
well-settled,  the  other  new  and  as  yet  unbal- 
48 


CHYSTAILLIXE     ALTITUDES 

lasted.  Just  opposite  the  pygmy  station  a 
lateral  gorge  intersects  the  main  canyon,  mak 
ing  a  deep  gash  in  the  opposing  mountain 
bulwark,  around  which  the  new  line  has  to  find 
its  way  by  a  looping  detour. 

In  a  scanty  widening  of  the  main  canyon  a 
few  hundred  yards  below  the  station  a  grad 
ers'  camp  of  rude  slab  shelters  is  turning  out 
its  horde  of  wild-looking  Italians ;  and  on  a 
crooked  spur  track  fronting  the  shanties  blue 
wood-smoke  is  curling  lazily  upward  from  the 
kitchen  car  of  a  construction  train. 

All  night  long  the  Rosemary,  drawn  by  the 
sturdiest  of  mountain-climbing  locomotives, 
had  stormed  onward  and  upward  from  the  val 
ley  of  the  Grand,  through  black  defiles  and 
around  the  shrugged  shoulders  of  the  mighty 
peaks  to  find  a  resting-place  in  the  white-robed 
dawn  on  the  siding  at  Argentine.  The  light 
est  of  sleepers,  Virginia  had  awakened  when 
the  special  was  passing  through  Carbonate; 
and,  drawing  the  berth  curtain,  she  had  lain 
for  an  hour  watching  the  solemn  procession  of 
cliffs  and  peaks  wheeling  in  stately  and  order- 
49 


A     FOOL,     FOR     LOVE 

ly  array  against  the  inky  background  of  sky. 
Now,  in  the  steel-blue  dawn,  she  was — or 
thought  she  was — the  first  member  of  the 
party  to  dress  and  steal  out  upon  the  railed 
platform  to  look  abroad  upon  the  wondrous 
scene  in  the  canyon. 

But  her  reverie,  trance-like  in  its  wordless 
enthusiasm,  was  presently  broken  by  a  voice 
behind  her — the  voice,  namely,  of  Mr.  Arthur 
Jastrow. 

"What  a  howling  wilderness,  to  be  sure, 
isn't  it?"  said  the  secretary,  twirling  his  eye 
glasses  by  the  cord  and  looking,  as  he  felt,  in 
terminably  bored. 

"No,  indeed;  anything  but  that,"  she  re 
torted  warmly.  "It  is  grander  than  anything 
I  ever  imagined.  I  wish  there  were  a  piano 
in  the  car.  It  makes  me  fairly  ache  to  set  it 
in  some  form  of  expression,  and  music  is  the 
only  form  I  know." 

"I'm  glad  if  it  doesn't  bore  you,"  he  re 
joined,  willing  to  agree  with  her  for  the  sake 
of  prolonging  the  interview.  "But  to  me  it  is 
nothing  more  than  a  dreary  wilderness,  as  I 
50 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

say ;  a  barren,  rock-ribbed  gulch  affording  an 
indifferent  right  of  way  for  two  railroads." 

"For  one,"  she  corrected,  in  a  quick  upflash 
of  loyalty  for  her  kin. 

The  secretary  shifted  his  gaze  from  the 
mountains  to  the  maiden  and  smiled.  She  was 
exceedingly  good  to  look  upon — high-bred, 
queenly,  and  just  now  the  fine  fire  of  enthusi 
asm  quickened  her  pulses  and  sent  the  rare 
flush  to  neck  and  cheek. 

Jastrow  the  cold-eyed,  the  business  automa 
ton,  set  to  go  off  with  a  click  at  Mr.  Somer- 
ville  Darrah's  touch,  had  ambitions  not  au 
tomatic.  Some  day  he  meant  to  put  the  world 
of  business  under  foot  as  a  conqueror,  stand 
ing  triumphant  on  the  apex  of  that  pyramid 
of  success  which  the  Mr.  Somerville  Darrahs 
were  so  painstakingly  uprearing.  When  that 
day  should  come,  there  would  need  to  be  an 
establishment,  a  menage,  a  queen  for  the  king 
dom  of  success.  Summing  her  up  for  the  hun 
dredth  time  since  the  beginning-  of  the  west 
ward  flight,  he  thought  Miss  Carteret  would 
fill  the  requirements  passing  well. 
51 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

But  this  was  a  divagation,  and  he  pulled 
himself  back  to  the  askings  of  the  moment, 
agreeing  with  her  again  without  reference  to 
his  private  convictions. 

"For  one,  I  should  have  said,"  he  amended. 
"We  mean  to  have  it  that  way,  though  an  un 
prejudiced  onlooker  might  be  foolish  enough 
to  say  that  there  is  a  pretty  good  present  pros 
pect  of  two." 

But  Miss  Carteret  was  in  a  contradictory 
mood.  Moreover,  she  was  a  woman,  and  the 
way  to  a  woman's  confidence  does  not  lie 
through  the  neutral  country  of  easy  compli 
ance. 

"If  you  won't  take  the  other  side,  I  will," 
she  said.  "There  will  be  two." 

Jastrow  acquiesced  a  second  time. 

"I  shouldn't  wonder.  Our  competitor's 
road  seems  to  be  only  a  question  of  time — a 
very  short  time,  judging  from  the  number  of 
men  turning  out  in  the  track  gang  down  yon 
der." 

Virginia  leaned  over  the  railing  to  look  past 
the  car  and  the  dovecote  statioxu  shading  her 
62 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

eyes  to  shut  out  the  snow-blink  from  the  sun- 
fired  peaks. 

"Why,  they  are  soldiers!"  she  exclaimed. 
"At  least,  some  of  them  have  guns  on  their 
shoulders.  And  see — they  are  forming  in 
line!" 

The  secretary  adjusted  his  eye-glasses. 

"By  Jove!  you  are  right;  they  have  armed 
the  track  force.  The  new  chief  of  construc 
tion  doesn't  mean  to  take  any  chances  of  being 
shaken  loose  by  main  strength.  Here  they 
come." 

The  end  of  track  of  the  new  line  was  diago 
nally  across  the  creek  from  the  Rosemary's 
berth  and  a  short  pistol-shot  farther  down 
stream.  But  to  advance  it  to  a  point  opposite 
the  private  car,  and  to  gain  the  altitude  of  the 
high  embankment  directly  across  from  the  sta 
tion,  the  new  line  turned  short  out  of  the  main 
canyon  at  the  mouth  of  the  intersecting  gorge, 
describing  a  long,  U-shaped  curve  around  the 
head  of  the  lateral  ravine  and  doubling  back 
upon  itself  to  reenter  the  canyon  proper  at 
the  higher  elevation. 

53 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

The  curve  which  was  the  beginning  of  this 
U-shaped  loop  was  the  morning's  scene  of  ac 
tion,  and  the  Utah  track-layers,  two  hundred 
strong,  moved  to  the  front  in  orderly  array, 
with  armed  guards  as  flankers  for  the  hand 
car  load  of  rails  which  the  men  were  pushing 
up  the  grade. 

Jastrow  darted  into  the  car,  and  a  moment 
later  his  place  on  the  observation  platform  was 
taken  by  a  wrathful  industry  colonel  fresh 
from  his  dressing-room — so  fresh,  indeed,  that 
he  was  coatless,  hatless,  and  collarless,  and 
with  the  dripping  bathi-sponge  clutched  like 
a  missile  to  hurl  at  the  impudent  invaders  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  canyon. 

"Hah !  wouldn't  wait  until  a  man  could  get 
into  his  clothes!"  he  rasped,  apostrophizing 
the  Utah's  new  chief  of  construction.  "Jas 
trow!  Faveh  me  instantly,  seh!  Hustle  up 
to  the  camp  there  and  turn  out  the  constable, 
town-marshal,  or  whatever  he  is.  Tell  him  I 
have  a  writ  for  him  to  serve.  Run,  seh !" 

The  secretary  appeared  and  disappeared 
like  a  marionette  when  the  string  has  been 
54 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

jerked  by  a  vigorous  hand,  and  Virginia 
smiled — this  without  prejudice  to  a  very  acute 
appreciation  of  the  grave  possibilities  which 
were  preparing  themselves.  But  having  her 
share  of  the  militant  quality  which  made  her 
uncle  what  he  was,  she  stood  her  ground. 

"Aren't  you  afraid  you  will  take  cold, 
Uncle  Somerville  ?"  she  asked  archly ;  and  the 
Rajah  came  suddenly  to  a  sense  of  his  incom 
pleteness  and  went  in  to  finish  his  ablutions 
against  the  opening  of  the  battle  actual. 

At  first  Virginia  thought  she  would  follow 
him.  When  Mercury  Jastrow  should  return 
with  the  officer  of  the  law  there  would  be  trou 
ble  of  some  sort,  and  the  woman  in  her  shrank 
from  the  witnessing  of  it.  But  at  the  same  in 
stant  the  blood  of  the  fighting  Carterets  as 
serted  itself  and  she  resolved  to  stay. 

"I  wonder  what  uncle  hopes  to  be  able  to 
do?"  she  mused.  "Will  a  little  town  con 
stable  with  a  bit  of  signed  paper  from  some 
lawyer  or  judge  be  mighty  enough  to  stop 
all  that  furious  activity  over  there?  It's  more 
than  incredible." 

55 


A     FOOL     FOE      LOVE 

From  that  she  fell  to  watching  the  activity 
and  the  orderly  purpose  of  it.  A  length  of 
steel,  with  men  clustering  like  bees  upon  it, 
would  slide  from  its  place  on  the  hand-car  to 
fall  with  a  frosty  clang  on  the  cross-ties.  In 
stantly  the  hammermen  would  pounce  upon  it- 
One  would  fall  upon  hands  and  knees  to 
"sight"  it  into  place;  two  others  would  slide 
the  squeaking  track-gage  along  its  inner 
edge;  a  quartet,  working  like  the  component 
parts  of  a  faultless  mechanism,  would  tap  the 
fixing  spikes  into  the  wood ;  and  then  at  a  sig 
nal  a  dozen  of  the  heavy  pointed  hammers 
swung  aloft  and  a  rhythmic  volley  of  resound 
ing  blows  clamped  the  rail  into  permanence 
on  its  wooden  bed. 

Ahead  of  the  steel-layers  were  the  Italians 
placing  the  cross-ties  in  position  to  receive  the 
track,  and  here  the  foreman's  badge  of  office 
and  scepter  was  a  pick-handle.  Above  all  the 
clamor  and  the  shoutings  Virginia  could  hear 
the  bull-bellow  of  this  foreman  roaring  out  his 
commands — in  terms  happily  not  understand 
able  to  her ;  and  once  she  drew  back  with  a  lit- 
56 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

tie  cry  of  womanly  shrinking  when  the  pick- 
handle  thwacked  upon  the  shoulders  of  one 
who  lagged. 

It  was  this  bit  of  brutality  which  enabled 
her  to  single  out  Winton  in  the  throng  of 
workers.  He  heard  the  blow,  and  the  oath 
that  went  with  it,  and  she  saw  him  run  forward 
to  wrench  the  bludgeon  from  the  bully's  hands 
and  fling  it  afar.  What  words  emphasized 
the  act  she  could  not  hear,  but  the  little  deed 
of  swift  justice  thrilled  her  curiously,  and  her 
heart  warmed  to  him  as  it  had  when  he  had 
thrown  off  his  coat  to  fall  to  work  on  the  de 
railed  engine  of  the  Limited. 

"That  was  fine !"  she  said  to  herself.  "Most 
men  in  his  place  wouldn't  care,  so  long  as  the 
work  was  done,  and  done  quickly.  I  wonder 
if — oh,  you  startled  me !" 

It  was  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  again, 
clothed  upon  and  in  his  right  mind ;  otherwise 
the  mind  of  a  master  of  men  who  will  brook 
neither  defeat  at  the  hands  of  an  antagonist 
nor  disobedience  on  the  part  of  his  following. 
He  was  scowling  fiercely  across  at  the  Utah 
57 


A     FOOL     FOB,     LOVE 

activities  when  she  spoke,  but  at  her  exclama 
tion  the  frown  softened  into  a  smile  for  his 
favorite  niece. 

"Startled  you,  eh?  Pahdon  me,  my  deah 
Virginia.  But  as  I  am  about  to  startle  some 
one  else,  perhaps  you  would  better  go  in  to 
your  aunt." 

She  put  a  hand  on  his  arm.  "Please  let  me 
stay  out  here,  Uncle  Somerville,"  she  said. 
"I'll  be  good  and  not  get  in  the  way." 

He  shook  his  head,  in  deprecation  rather 
than  in  refusal. 

"An  officer  will  be  here  right  soon  now  to 
make  an  arrest.  There  may  be  a  fight,  or  at 
least  trouble  of  a  sort  you  wouldn't  care  to 
see,  my  deah." 

"Is  it — is  it  Mr.  Winton  ?"  she  asked. 

He  nodded. 

"What  has  he  been  doing — besides  being 
'The  Enemy'?" 

The  Rajah's  smile  was  ferocious. 

"Just  now  he  is  trespassing,  and  directing 
others  to  trespass,  upon  private  property.  Do 
you  see  that  dump  up  there  on  the  mountain  ? 
58 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

— the  hole  that  looks  like  a  mouth  with  a  long 
gray  beard  hanging  below  it?  That  is  a  mine, 
and  its  claim  runs  down  across  the  track  where 
Misteh  Winton  is  just  now  spiking  his  rails." 

"But,  I  don't  understand,"  she  began ;  then 
she  stopped  short  and  clung  to  the  strong 
arm.  A  man  in  a  wide-flapped  hat  and  cow 
boy  chaparejos,  with  a  revolver  on  either  hip, 
was  crossing  the  stream  on  the  ice-bridge  to 
scramble  up  the  embankment  of  the  new  line. 

"The  officer?"  she  asked  in  an  awed  whis 
per. 

The  Rajah  made  a  sign  of  assent.  Then, 
identifying  Winton  in  the  throng  of  workers, 
he  forgot  Virginia's  presence.  "Confound 
him !"  he  fumed.  "I'd  give  a  thousand  dollars 
if  he'd  faveh  me  by  showing  fight  so  we  could 
lock  him  up  on  a  criminal  count !" 

"Why,  Uncle  Somerville !"  she  cried. 

But  there  was  no  time  for  reproaches.  The 
leather-breeched  person  parading  as  the  Ar 
gentine  town-marshal  had  climbed  the  em 
bankment,  and,  singling  out  his  man,  was 
reading  his  warrant. 

59 


A     FOOL      FOR      LOVE 

Contrary  to  Mr.  Darrah's  expressed  hope, 
Winton  submitted  quietly.  With  a  word  to 
his  men — a  word  that  stopped  the  strenuous 
labor-battle  as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun — he 
turned  to  pick  his  way  down  the  rough  hill 
side  at  the  heels  of  the  marshal. 

For  some  reason  that  she  could  never  have 
set  out  in  words  Virginia  was  distinctly  dis 
appointed.  It  was  no  part  of  her  desire  to 
see  the  conflict  blaze  up  in  violence,  but  it  net 
tled  her  to  see  Winton  give  up  so  easily.  Some 
such  thought  as  this  had  possession  of  her 
while  the  marshal  and  his  prisoner  were  pick 
ing  their  way  across  the  ice,  and  she  was  hop 
ing  that  Winton  would  give  her  a  chance  to 
requite  him,  if  only  with  a  look. 

But  it  -was  Town-Marshal  Peter  Biggin, 
affectionately  known  to  his  constituents  as 
"Bigginjin  Pete,"  who  gave  her  the  coveted 
opportunity.  Instead  of  disappearing  decent 
ly  with  his  captive,  the  marshal  made  the  mis 
take  of  his  life  by  marching  Winton  up  the 
track  to  the  private  car,  thrusting  him  for 
ward,  and  saying :  "Here's  yer  meat,  Guv'nor. 
60 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

What-all  'ud  ye  like  fer  me  to  do  with  hit 
now  I've  got  it?" 

Now  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  Rajah  had 
no  intention  of  appearing  thus  openly  as  the 
instigator  of  Winton's  arrest.  Hence,  if  a 
fierce  scowl  .and  a  wordless  oath  could  maim, 
it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  overzealous  Mr. 
Biggin  would  have  been  physically  disquali 
fied  on  the  spot.  As  it  was,  Mr.  Darrah's 
ebullient  wrath  could  find  no  adequate  speech 
forms,  and  in  the  eloquent  little  pause  Win- 
ton  had  time  to  smile  up  at  Miss  Carteret  and 
to  wish  her  the  pleasantest  of  good-mornings. 

But  the  Rajah's  handicap  was  not  perma 
nent. 

"Confound  you,  seh!"  he  exploded.  "I'm 
not  a  justice  of  the  peace !  If  you've  made  an 
arrest,  you  must  have  had  a  warrant  for  it, 
and  you  ought  to  know  what  to  do  with  your 
prisoneh." 

"I'm  dashed  if  I  do,"  objected  the  simple- 
hearted  Mr.  Biggin.  "I  allowed  you  wanted, 
him." 

Winton  laughed  openly. 
5  61 


A     POOL     FOB.     LOVE 

"Simplify  it  for  him,  Mr.  Darrah.  We  all 
know  that  it  was  your  move  to  stop  the  work, 
.and  you  have  stopped  it — for  the  moment. 
What  is  the  charge,  and  where  is  it  answera 
ble?" 

The  Rajah  dropped  the  mask  and  spoke  to 
the  point. 

"The  cha'ge,  seh,  is  trespass,  and  it  is  an 
swerable  in  Judge  Whitcomb's  cou't  in  Car 
bonate.  The  plaintiff  in  this  particular  case 
is  John  Doe,  the  supposable  owneh  of  that 
mining  claim  up  yondeh.  In  the  next  it  will 
probably  be  Richa'd  Roe.  You  are  fighting 
&  losing  battle,  seh." 

Winton's  smile  showed  his  teeth. 

"That  remains  to  be  seen,"  he  countered 
-coolly. 

The  Rajah  waved  a  shapely  hand  toward 
the  opposite  embankment,  where  the  track 
layers  were  idling  in  silent  groups  waiting  for 
some  one  in  authority  to  tell  them  what  to  do. 

"We  can  do  that  every  day,  Misteh  Winton. 
And  each  separate  individual  arrest  will  cost 
your  company  twelve  hours,  or  such  a  matteh 
62 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

— the  time  required  for  you  to  go  to  Carbon 
ate  to  give  bond  for  your  appearance." 

During  this  colloquy  Virginia  had  held  her 
ground  stubbornly,  this  though  she  felt  intui 
tively  that  it  would  be  the  greatest  possible 
relief  to  all  three  of  these  men  if  she  would  go 
away. 

But  now  a  curious  struggle  as  of  a  divided 
allegiance  was  holding  her.  Of  course,  she 
wanted  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  to  win.  Since 
he  was  its  advocate,  his  cause  must  be  right 
eous  and  just.  But  against  this  dutiful  con- 
vincement  there  was  a  rebellious  hope  that 
Winton  would  not  allow  himself  to  be  beaten ; 
or,  rather,  it  was  a  feeling  that  she  would 
never  forgive  him  if  he  should. 

So  it  was  that  she  ,tood  with  face  averted 
lest  he  should  see  her  eyes  and  read  the  rebel 
lious  hope  in  them.  And  in  spite  of  the 
precaution  he  both  saw  and  read,  and  made 
answer  to  the  Rajah's  ultimatum  accordingly. 

"Do  your  worst,  Mr.  Darrah.  We  have 
some  twenty  miles  of  steel  to  lay  to  take  us 
into  the  Carbonate  yards.  That  steel  shall  go 
63 


down  in  spite  of  anything  you  can  do  to  pre 
vent  it." 

Virginia  waited  breathless  for  her  uncle's 
reply  to  this  cool  defiance.  Quite  contrary 
to  all  precedent,  it  was  mildly  expostula- 
tory. 

"It  grieves  me,  seh,  to  find  you  so  deter 
mined  to  cou't  failure,"  he  began ;  and  when 
the  whistle  of  the  upcoming  Carbonate  train 
gave  him  leave  to  go  on :  "Constable,  you  will 
find  transpo'tation  for  yourself  and  one  in 
the  hands  of  the  station  agent.  Misteh  Win- 
ton,  that  is  your  train.  I  wish  you  good- 
morning  and  a  pleasant  journey.  Come,  Vir 
ginia,  we  shall  be  late  to  ouh  breakfast." 

Winton  walked  back  to  the  station  at  the 
heels  of  his  captor,  cu  q  Deling  his  brain  to  de 
vise  some  means  of  getting  word  to  Adams, 
Happily  the  Technologian,  who  had  been  un 
loading  steel  at  the  construction  camp,  had 
been  told  of  the  arrest,  and  when  Winton 
reached  the  station  he  found  his  assistant  wait 
ing  for  him. 

But  now  the  train  was  at  hand  and  time  had 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

grown    suddenly    precious*      Winton   turned 
short  upon  the  marshal. 

"This  is  not  a  criminal  matter,  Mr.  Biggin : 
will  you  give  me  a  moment  with  my  friend  ?" 

The  ex-cowboy  grinned.  "Bet  your  life  I 
will.  I  ain't  lovin'  that  old  b'iler-buster  in 
the  private  car  none  too  hard."  And  he  went 
in  to  get  the  passes. 

"What's  up?"  queried  Adams,  forgetting 
his  drawl  for  once  in  a  way. 

"An  arrest — trumped-up  charge  of  tres 
pass  on  that  mining  claim  up  yonder.  But 
I've  got  to  go  to  Carbonate  to  answer  the 
charge  and  give  bonds,  just  the  same." 

"Any  instructions?" 

"Yes.  When  the  train  is  out  of  sight  and 
hearing,  you  get  back  over  there  and  drive 
that  track-laying  for  every  foot  there  is  in  it." 

Adams  nodded.  "I'll  do  it,  and  get  myself 
locked  up,  I  suppose." 

"No,  you  won't;  that's  the  beauty  of  it. 
The  majesty  of  the  law — all  there  is  of  it  in 
Argentine — goes  with  me  to  Carbonate  in  the 
person  of  the  town-marshal." 
65 


A      FOOT.     FOE      LOVE 

"Oh,  good — succulently  good!  Well,  so 
long.  I'll  look  for  you  back  on  the  evening 
train?" 

"Sure,"  was  the  confident  reply,  "if  the 
Rajah  doesn't  order  it  to  be  abandoned  on 
my  poor  account." 

Ten  minutes  later,  when  the  train  had  gone 
storming  on  its  way  to  Carbonate  and  the 
Rosemary  party  was  at  breakfast,  the  clank 
of  steel  and  the  chanteys  of  the  hammermen 
on  the  other  side  of  the  canyon  began  again 
with  renewed  vigor.  The  Rajah  threw  up 
his  head  like  a  war-horse  scenting  the  battle 
from  afar  and  laid  his  commands  upon  the 
long-suffering  secretary. 

"Faveh  me,  Jastrow.  Get  out  there  and 
see  what  they  are  doing,  seh." 

The  secretary  was  back  in  the  shortest  pos 
sible  interval,  and  his  report  was  concise  and 
business-like. 

"Work  under  full  headway  again,  in  charge 
of  a  fellow  who  wears  a  billy-cock  hat  and 
smokes  cigarettes." 

"Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams,"  said  Virginia, 
66 


CRYSTALLINE     ALTITUDES 

recognizing  the  description.  "Will  you  have 
him  arrested  too,  Uncle  Somerville?" 

But  the  Rajah  rose  hastily  without  reply 
ing  and  went  to  his  office  state-room,  followed, 
shadow-like,  by  the  obsequious  Jastrow. 

It  was  some  little  time  after  breakfast,  and 
Virginia  and  the  Reverend  Billy  were  doing 
a  constitutional  on  the  plank  platform  at  the 
station,  when  the  secretary  came  down  from 
the  car  on  his  way  to  the  telegraph  office. 

It  was  Virginia  who  stopped  him.  "What 
do  we  do  next,  Mr.  Jastrow  ?"  she  said ;  "call 
in  the  United  States  Army?" 

For  reply  he  handed  her  a  telegram,  damp 
from  the  copying  press.  It  was  addressed  to 
the  superintendent  of  the  C.  G.  R.  at  Car 
bonate,  and  she  read  it  without  scruple. 

"  Have  the  Sheriff  of  Ute  County  swear  in  a  dozen 
deputies  and  come  with  them  by  special  train  to 
Argentine.  Revive  all  possible  titles  to  abandoned 
mining  claims  on  line  of  the  Utah  Extension,  and 
have  Sheriff  Deckert  bring  blank  warrants  to  cover 
any  emergency.  "  DAKBAH,  V.-P." 

"That's  one  of  them,"  said  the  secretary. 
"I  daren't  show  you  the  other." 
67 


A      FOOL      FOE     LOVE 

"Oh,  please!"  she  said,  holding  out  her 
hand,  while  the  Reverend  Billy  considerately 
turned  his  back. 

Jastrow  weighed  the  chances  of  detection. 
It  was  little  enough  he  could  do  to  lay  her 
under  obligations  to  him,  and  he  was  willing 
to  do  that  little  as  he  could.  "I  guess  I  can 
trust  you,"  he  said,  and  gave  her  the  second 
square  of  press-damp  paper. 

Like  the  first,  it  was  addressed  to  the  super 
intendent  at  Carbonate.  But  this  time  the 
brown  eyes  flashed  and  her  breath  came  quick 
ly  as  she  read  the  vice-president's  cold-blooded 
after-thought : 

"  Town-Marshal  Biggin  will  arrive  in  Carbonate 
on  Number  201  this  A.M.  with  a  prisoner.  Have  our 
attorneys  see  to  it  that  the  man  is  promptly  jailed  in 
default  of  bond.  If  he  is  set  at  liberty,  as  he  is 
likely  to  be,  I  shall  trust  you  to  arrange  for  his 
rearrest  and  detention  at  all  hazards. 

"D." 


68 


THE    LANDSLIDE 

Virginia  took  the  first  step  in  the  perilous 
path  of  the  strategist  when  she  handed  the  in 
cendiary  telegram  back  to  Jastrow. 

"Poor  Mr.  Winton !"  she  said,  with  the  real 
sympathy  in  the  words  made  most  obviously 
perfunctory  by  the  tone.  "What  a  world  of 
possibilities  there  is  masquerading  behind  that 
little  word  'arrange.'  Tell  me  more  about  it, 
Mr.  Jastrow.  How  will  they  *arrange'  it?" 

"Winton's  rearrest?  Nothing  easier  in  a 
tough  mining-camp  like  Carbonate,  I  should 
say." 

"Yes,  but  how?" 

"I  can't  prophesy  how  Grafton  will  go 
about  it,  but  I  know  what  I  should  do." 

Virginia's  smile  was  irresistible,  but  there 
was  a  look  in  the  deepest  depth  of  the  brown 
eyes  that  was  sifting  Mr.  Arthur  Jastrow  to 
the  innermost  sand-heap  of  his  desert  nature. 
69 


A     FOOL     FOE     I.OVE 

"How  would  you  do  it,  Mr.  Napoleon  Jas- 
trow?"  she  asked,  giving  him  the  exact  fillip 
on  the  side  of  gratified  vanity. 

"Oh,  I'd  fix  him.  He  is  in  a  frame  of  mind 
right  now;  and  by  the  time  the  lawyers  are 
through  drilling  him  in  the  trespass  affair, 
he'll  be  just  spoiling  for  a  row  with  some 
body." 

"Do  you  think  so?  Oh,  how  delicious! 
And  then  what?" 

"Then  I'd  hire  some  plug-ugly  to  stumble 
up  against  him  and  pick  a  quarrel  with  him. 
He'd  do  the  rest — and  land  in  the  lock-up." 

Those  who  knew  her  best  said  it  was  a  warn 
ing  to  be  heeded  in  Miss  Virginia  Carteret 
when  her  eyes  were  downcast  and  her  voice 
sank  to  its  softest  cadence. 

"Why,  certainly;  how  simple!"  she  said, 
taking  her  cousin's  arm  again ;  and  the  secre 
tary  went  in  to  set  the  wires  at  work  in  Win- 
ton's  affair. 

Now  Miss  Carteret  was  a  woman  in  every 
fiber  of  her,  but  among  her  gifts  she  might 
have  counted  some  that  were,  to  say  the  least, 
70 


THE      LANDSLIDE 

super-feminine.  One  of  these  was  a  measure 
of  discretion  which  would  have  been  fairly 
creditable  in  a  past  master  of  diplomacy. 
So,  while  the  sympathetic  part  of  her  was 
crying  out  for  a  chance  to  talk  Winton's 
threatened  danger  over  with  some  one,  she 
lent  herself  outwardly  to  the  Reverend  Billy's 
mood — which  was  one  of  scenic  enthusiasm; 
this  without  prejudice  to  a  growing  determi 
nation  to  intervene  in  behalf  of  fair  play  for 
Winton  if  she  could  find  a  way. 

But  the  way  obstinately  refused  to  discover 
itself.  The  simple  thing  to  do  would  be  to 
appeal  to  her  uncle's  sense  of  justice.  It  was 
not  like  him  to  fight  vith  ignoble  weapons, 
she  thought,  and  a  ta  iful  word  in  season 
might  make  him  recall  the  order  to  the  super 
intendent.  But  she  could  not  make  the  appeal 
without  betraying  Jastrow.  She  knew  well 
enough  that  the  secretary  had  no  right  to 
show  her  the  telegrams;  knew  also  that  Mr. 
Somerville  Darrah's  first  word  would  be  a  de 
mand  to  know  how  she  had  learned  the  com 
pany's  business  secrets.  Regarding  Jastrow 
71 


A     FOOL     FOB,     LOVE 

as  little  as  a  high-bred  young  woman  to  whom 
sentiment  is  as  the  breath  of  life  can  regard 
a  man  who  is  quite  devoid  of  it,  she  was  still 
far  enough  from  the  thought  of  effacing  him. 

To  this  expedient  there  was  an  unhopeful 
alternative:  namely,  the  sending,  by  the  Rev 
erend  Billy,  or,  in  the  last  resort,  by  herself, 
of  a  warning  message  to  Winton.  But  there 
were  obstacles  seemingly  insuperable.  She 
had  not  the  faintest  notion  of  how  such  a 
warning  should  be  addressed;  and  again,  the 
operator  at  Argentine  was  a  Colorado  and 
Grand  River  employee,  doubtless  loyal  to  his 
salt,  in  which  case  the  warning  message  would 
never  get  beyond  his  waste-basket. 

"Getting  too  chillT  for  you  out  here  ?  Want 
to  go  in?"  asked  the  Reverend  Billy,  when  the 
scenic  enthusiasm  began  to  outwear  itself. 

"No ;  but  I  am  tired  of  the  sentry-go  part 
of  it — ten  steps  and  a  turn,"  she  confessed. 
"Can't  we  walk  on  the  track  a  little  way  ?" 

Calvert  saw  no  reason  why  they  might  not, 
and  accordingly  helped  her  over  to  the  snow- 
encrusted  path  between  the  rails. 
72 


THE     LANDSLIDE 

"We  can  trot  down  and  have  a  look  at  their 
construction  camp,  if  you  like,"  he  suggested, 
and  thitherward  they  went. 

There  was  not  much  to  see,  after  all,  as  the 
Reverend  Billy  remarked  when  they  had 
reached  a  coign  of  vantage  below  the  curve. 
A  string  of  use-worn  bunk  cars;  a  "dinkey" 
caboose  serving  as  the  home  on  wheels  of  the 
chief  of  construction  and  his  assistant ;  a 
crooked  siding  with  a  gang  of  dark-skinned 
laborers  at  work  unloading  a  car  of  steel. 
These  in  the  immediate  foreground;  and  a 
little  way  apart,  perched  high  enough  on  the 
steep  slope  of  the  mountain  side  to  be  out  of 
the  camp  turmoil,  a  small  structure,  half  plank 
and  half  canvas — to  wit,  the  end-of -track  tele 
graph  office. 

It  was  Virginia  who  first  marked  the  boxed - 
up  tent  standing  on  the  slope. 

"What  do  you  suppose  that  little  house-tent 
is  for?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Calvert.  Then  he 
saw  the  wires  and  ventured  a  guess  which  hit 
the  mark. 

73 


"I  didn't  suppos ;  they  would  have  a  tele 
graph  office,"  she  commented,  with  hope  rising 
again. 

"Oh,  yes ;  they'd  have  to  have  a  wire — one 
of  their  own.  Under  the  circumstances  they 
could  hardly  use  ours." 

"No,"  she  rejoined  absently.  She  was  scan 
ning  the  group  of  steel-handlers  in  the  hope 
that  a  young  man  in  a  billy-cock  hat  and  with 
a  cigarette  between  his  lips  would  shortly  re 
veal  himself.  She  found  him  after  a  time  and 
turned  quickly  to  her  cousin. 

"There  is  Mr.  Adams  down  by  the  engine- 
Do  you  think  he  would  come  over  and  speak 
to  us  if  he  knew  we  were  here  ?" 

The  Reverend  Billy's  smile  was  of  honest 
admiration. 

"How  could  you  doubt  it?  Wait  here  a 
minute  and  I'll  call  him  for  you." 

He  was  gone  before  she  could  reply — across 
the  ice-bridge  spanning  one  of  the  pools,  and 
up  the  rough,  frozen  embankment  of  the  new 
line.  There  were  armed  guards  here,  too,  as 
well  as  at  the  front,  and  one  of  them  halted 
74 


THE     LANDSLIDE 

Mm  at  the  picket  line.  But  Adams  saw  and 
recognized  him,  and  presently  the  two  were 
crossing  to  where  Virginia  stood  waiting  for 
them. 

"Eheu !  what  a  little  world  we  live  in,  Miss 
Virginia !  Who  would  have  thought  of  meet 
ing  you  here?"  said  Adams,  taking  her  hand 
at  the  precise  elevation  prescribed  by  good 
form — Boston  good  form. 

"The  shock  is  mutual,"  she  laughed.  "I 
must  say  that  you  and  Mr.  Winton  have 
chosen  a  highly  unconventional  environment 
for  your  sketching-field." 

"I'm  down,"  he  admitted  cheerfully; 
**please  don't  trample  on  me.  But  really,  it 
wasn't  all  fib.  Jack  does  do  things  with  a  pen 
cil — other  things  besides  maps  and  working 
profiles,  I  mean.  Won't  you  come  over  and 
let  me  do  the  honors  of  the  studio?" — with  a 
grandiloquent  arm-sweep  meant  to  include  the 
construction  camp  in  general  and  the  "dink 
ey"  caboose-car  in  particular. 

It  was  the  invitation  she  would  have  angled 
for,  but  she  was  too  wise  to  assent  too  readily. 
75 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

"Oh,  no;  I  think  we  mustn't.  I'm  afraid 
Mr.  Winton  might  not  like  it." 

"Not  like  it?  If  you'll  come  he'll  never 
forgive  himself  for  not  being  here  to  'shoot 
up'  the  camp  for  you  in  person.  He  is  away, 
you  know ;  gone  to  Carbonate  for  the  day." 

"Ought  we  to  go,  Cousin  Billy  ?"  she  asked, 
shifting,  not  the  decision,  but  the  responsibil 
ity  for  it,  to  broader  shoulders. 

"Why  not,  if  you  care  to?"  said  the  athlete, 
to  whom  right-of-way  fights  were  mere  mat 
ters  of  business  in  no  wise  conflicting  with  the 
social  ameliorations. 

Virginia  hesitattd.  There  was  a  thing  to 
be  said  to  Mr.  Adams,  and  that  without  delay ; 
but  how  could  she  say  it  with  her  cousin  stand 
ing  by  to  make  an  impossible  trio  out  of  any 
attempted  duet  confidential?  A  willingness  to 
see  that  Winton  had  fair  play  need  not  carry 
with  it  an  open  desertion  to  the  enemy.  She 
must  not  forget  to  be  loyal  to  her  salt;  and, 
besides,  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah's  righteous 
indignation  was  a  possibility  not  lightly  to  be 
ignored. 

76 


THE     LANDSLIDE 

But  the  upshot  of  the  hesitant  pause  was  a 
decision  to  brave  the  consequences — all  of 
them ;  so  she  took  Calvert's  arm  for  the  slip 
pery  crossing  of  the  ice-bridge. 

Once  on  his  own  domain,  Adams  did  the 
honors  of  the  camp  as  thoroughly  and  consci 
entiously  as  if  the  hour  held  no  care  heavier 
than  the  entertainment  of  Miss  Virginia  Car- 
teret.  He  explained  the  system  under  which 
the  material  was  kept  moving  forward  to  the 
ever-advancing  front ;  let  her  watch  the  rhyth 
mic  swing  and  slide  of  the  rails  from  the  car 
to  the  benches ;  took  her  up  into  the  cab  of  the 
big  "octopod"  locomotive;  gave  her  a  chance 
to  peep  into  the  camp  kitchen  car;  and  con 
cluded  by  handing  her  up  the  steps  of  the 
"dinkey." 

"Oh,  how  comfortable!"  she  exclaimed, 
when  he  had  shown  her  all  the  space-saving 
contrivances  of  the  field  office.  "And  this  is 
where  you  and  Mr.  Winton  work  ?" 

"It  is  where  we  eat  and  sleep,"  corrected 
Adams.  "And  speaking  of  eating :  it  is  hope 
lessly  the  wrong  end  of  the  day, — or  it  would 


A     F  O  O  I,     FOR     LOVE 

be  in  Boston, — but  our  Chinaman  won't  know 
the  difference.  Let  me  have  him  make  you  a 
dish  of  tea," — and  the  order  was  given  before 
she  could  protest. 

"While  we  are  waiting  for  Ah  Foo  I'll  show 
you  some  of  Jack's  sketches,"  he  went  on,  find 
ing  a  portfolio  and  opening  it  upon  the  draw 
ing-board. 

"Are  you  quite  sure  Mr.  Winton  won't 
mind?"  she  asked. 

"Mind?  He'd  give  a  month's  pay  to  be 
here  to  show  them  himself.  He  is  peacock 
vain  of  his  one  small  accomplishment,  Winton 
is — bores  me  to  death  with  it  sometimes." 

"Really?"  was  the  mocking  rejoinder,  and 
they  began  to  look  at  the  sketches. 

They  were  heads,  most  of  them,  impres 
sionistic  studies  in  pencil  or  pastel,  with  now 
and  then  a  pen-and-ink  bearing  evidence  of 
more  painstaking  after-work.  They  were 
made  on  bits  of  map  paper,  the  backs  of  old 
letters,  and  not  a  few  on  leaves  torn  from  an 
engineer's  note-book. 

"They  don't  count  for  much  in  an  artistic 
78 


THE     LANDSLIDE 

way,"  said  Adams,  with  the  brutal  frankness 
of  a  friendly  critic,  "but  they  will  serve  to 
show  you  that  I  wasn't  all  kinds  of  an  em 
broiderer  when  I  was  telling  you  about  Win- 
ton's  proclivities  the  other  day." 

"I  shouldn't  apologize  for  that,  if  I  were 
you,"  she  retorted.  "It  is  well  past  apology, 
don't  you  think?"  And  then:  "What  is  this 
one?" 

They  had  come  to  the  last  of  the  sketches, 
which  was  a  rude  map.  It  was  penciled  on 
the  leaf  of  a  memorandum,  and  Adams  recog 
nized  it  as  the  outline  Winton  had  made  and 
used  in  explaining  the  right-of-way  entangle 
ment. 

"It  is  a  map,"  he  said ;  "one  that  Jack  drew 
day  before  yesterday  when  he  was  trying  to 
make  me  understand  the  situation  up  here.  I 
wonder  why  he  kept  it?  Is  there  anything  on 
the  other  side?" 

She  turned  the  leaf,  and  they  both  went 

speechless  for  the  moment.    The  reverse  of  the 

scrap  of  cross-ruled  paper  held  a  very  fair 

likeness  of  a  face  which  Virginia's  mirror  had 

79 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

oftenest  portrayed :  a  sketch  setting  forth  in 
a  few  vigorous  strokes  of  the  pencil  the  im 
pressionist's  ideal  of  the  "goddess  fresh  from 
the  bath." 

"By  Jove!"  exclaimed  Adams,  when  he 
could  find  the  word  for  his  surprise.  Then  he 
tried  to  turn  it  off  lightly.  "There  is  a  good 
bit  more  of  the  artist  in  Jack  than  I  have  been 
giving  him  credit  for.  Don't  you  know,  he 
must  have  got  the  notion  for  that  between  two 
half-seconds — when  you  recognized  me  on  the 
platform  at  Kansas  City.  It's  wonderful !" 

"So  very  wonderful  that  I  think  I  shall 
keep  it,"  she  rejoined,  not  without  a  touch  of 
austerity.  Then  she  added:  "Mr.  Winton 
will  probably  never  miss  it.  If  he  does,  you 
will  have  to  explain  the  best  way  you  can." 
And  Adams  could  only  say  "By  Jove !"  again, 
and  busy  himself  with  pouring  the  tea  which 
Ah  Foo  had  brought  in. 

In  the  nature  of  things  the  tea-drinking  in 
the  stuffy  "dinkey"  drawing-room  was  not 
prolonged.  Time  was  flying.  Virginia's  er 
rand  of  mercy  was  not  yet  accomplished,  and 
80 


THE     LANDSLIDE 

Aunt  Martha  in  her  character  of  anxious 
chaperon  was  not  to  be  forgotten.  Also,  Miss 
Carteret  had  a  feeling  that  under  his  well-bred 
exterior  Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams  was  chafing 
like  any  barbarian  industry  captain  at  this 
unwarrantable  intrusion  and  interruption. 

So  presently  they  all  forthfared  into  the 
sun-bright,  snow-blinding,  out-of-door  world, 
and  Virginia  gathered  up  her  courage  and 
took  her  dilemma  by  the  horns. 

"I  believe  I  have  seen  everything  now  ex 
cept  that  tent-place  up  there,"  she  asserted, 
groping  purposefully  for  her  opening. 

Adams  called  up  another  smile  of  acquies 
cence.  "That  is  our  telegraph  office.  Would 
you  care  to  see  it?"  He  was  of  those  who 
shirk  all  or  shirk  nothing. 

"I  don't  know  why  I  should  care  to,  but  I 
do,"  she  replied,  with  charming  and  childlike 
wilfulness;  so  the  three  of  them  trudged  up 
the  slippery  path  to  the  operator's  den  on  the 
slope. 

Not  to  evade  his  hospitable  duty  in  any 
part,  Adams  explained  the  use  and  need  of  a 
81 


A      FOOL      FOB      LOVE 

"front"  wire,  and  Miss  Carteret  was  properly 
interested. 

"How  convenient!"  she  commented.  "And 
you  can  come  up  here  and  talk  to  anybody 
you  like — just  as  if  it  were  a  telephone?" 

"To  any  one  in  the  company's  service," 
amended  Adams.  "It  is  not  a  commercial 
wire." 

"Then  let  us  send  a  message  to  Mr.  Win- 
ton,"  she  suggested,  playing  the  part  of  the 
capricious  ingenue  to  the  very  upcast  of  a 
pair  of  mischievous  eyes.  "I'll  write  it  and 
you  may  sign  it." 

Adams  stretched  his  complaisance  the  nec 
essary  additional  inch  and  gave  her  a  pencil 
and  a  pad  of  blanks.  She  wrote  rapidly: 

"  Miss  Carteret  has  been  here  admiring  your  draw 
ings.  She  took  one  of  them  away  with  her,  and  I 
couldn't  stop  her  without  being  rude.  You  shouldn't 
have  done  it  without  asking  her  permission.  She 
says " 

"Oh,  dear!  I  am.  making  it  awfully  long. 
Does  it  cost  so  much  a  word  ?" 

"No,"  said  Adams,  not  without  an  effort. 
82 


THE     LANDSLIDE 

He  was  beginning  to  be  distinctly  disappoint 
ed  in  Miss  Virginia,  and  was  inwardly  wonder 
ing  what  piece  of  girlish  frivolity  he  was  ex 
pected  to  sign  and  send  to  his  chief.  Mean 
while  she  'went  on  writing : 

" 1  am  to  tell  you  not  to  get  into  any  fresh 

trouble — not  to  let  any  one  else  get  you  into  trouble ; 
by  which  I  infer  she  means  that  some  attempt  will 
be  made  to  keep  you  from  returning  on  the  evening 
train." 

"There,  can  you  send  all  that?"  she  asked 
sweetly,  giving  the  pad  to  her  host. 

Adams  read  the  first  part  of  the  letter- 
length  telegram  with  inward  groanings,  but 
the  generous  purpose  of  it  struck  him  like  a 
whip-blow  when  he  came  to  the  thinly-veiled 
warning.  Also  it  shamed  him  for  his  un 
worthy  judgment  of  Virginia. 

"I  thank  you  very  heartily,  Miss  Carteret," 
he  said  humbly.  "It  shall  be  sent  word  for 
word."  Then,  for  the  Reverend  William's 
benefit :  "Winton  deserves  all  sorts  of  a  snub 
bing  for  taking  liberties  with  your  portrait. 
I'll  see  he  gets  more  when  he  comes  back.'* 
83 


A     FOOT,     FOR     LOVE 

Here  the  matter  rested;  and,  having  done 
what  she  conceived  to  be  her  charitable  duty, 
Virginia  was  as  anxious  to  get  away  as  heart 
— the  heart  of  a  slightly  bored  Reverend  Bil 
ly,  for  instance — could  wish. 

So  they  bade  Adams  good-by  and  picked 
their  way  down  the  frozen  embankment  and 
across  the  ice-bridge;  down  and  across  and 
back  to  the  Rosemary,  where  they  found  a 
perturbed  chaperon  in  a  flutter  of  solicitude 
arising  upon  their  mysterious  disappearance 
and  long  absence. 

"It  may  be  just  as  well  not  to  tell  any  of 
them  where  we  have  been,"  said  Virginia  in  an 
aside  to  her  cousin.  And  so  the  incident  of 
tea-drinking  in  the  enemy's  camp  was  safely 
put  away  like  a  little  personal  note  in  its  en 
velop  with  the  flap  gummed  down. 


VI 


THE  RAJAH  GIVES  AN  ORDER 

While  Adams  was  dispensing  commissary 
tea  in  iron-stone  china  cups  to  his  two  guests 
in  the  "dinkey"  field  office,  his  chief,  taking 
the  Rosemary's  night  run  in  reverse  in  the 
company  of  Town-Marshal  Biggin,  was  turn 
ing  the  Rajah's  coup  into  a  small  Utah  profit. 

Having  come  upon  the  ground  late  the 
night  before,  and  from  the  opposite  direction, 
he  had  seen  nothing  of  the  extension  grade 
west  of  Argentine.  Hence  the  enforced  jour 
ney  to  Carbonate  only  anticipated  an  inspec 
tion  trip  which  he  had  intended  to  make  as 
soon  as  he  had  seated  Adams  firmly  in  the 
track-laying  saddle. 

Not  to  miss  his  opportunity,  at  the  first 
curve  beyond  Argentine  he  passed  his  cigar- 
case  to  Biggin  and  asked  permission  to  ride 
on  the  rear  platform  of  the  day-coach  for  in-| 
spection  purposes. 

85 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

"Say,  pardner,  what  do  you  take  me  fer, 
anyhow?"  was  the  reproachful  rejoinder. 

"For  a  gentleman  in  disguise,"  said  Win- 
ton  promptly. 

"Sim'larly,  I  do  you;  savvy?  You  tell  me 
you  ain't  goin'  to  stampede,  and  you  ride  any 
where  you  blame  please.  See?  This  here  C. 
G.  R.  outfit  ain't  got  no  surcingle  on  me." 

Winton  smiled. 

"I  haven't  any  notion  of  stampeding.  As 
it  happens,  I'm  only  a  day  ahead  of  time.  I 
should  have  made  this  run  to-morrow  of  my 
own  accord  to  have  a  look  at  the  extension 
grade.  You  will  find  me  on  the  rear  platform 
when  you  want  me." 

"Good  enough,"  was  the  reply ;  and  Winton 
went  to  his  post  of  observation. 

Greatly  to  his  satisfaction,  he  found  that 
the  trip  over  the  C.  G.  R.  answered  every 
purpose  of  a  preliminary  inspection  of  the 
Utah  grade  beyond  Argentine.  For  seventeen 
of  the  twenty  miles  the  two  lines  were  scarcely 
more  than  a  stone's  throw  apart,  and  when 
Biggin  joined  him  at  the  junction  above  Car- 
86 


THE      RAJAH      GIVES     AN      ORDER 

bonate  he  had  his  note-book  well  filled  with 
the  necessary  data. 

"Make  it,  all  right?"  inquired  the  friendly 
bailiff. 

"Yes,  thanks.     Have  another  cigar?" 

"Don't  care  if  I  do.  Say,  that  old  fire- 
eater  back  yonder  in  the  private  car  has  got 
a  mighty  pretty  gal,  ain't  he  ?" 

"The  young  lady  is  his  niece,"  said  Winton, 
wishing  that  Mr.  Biggin  would  find  other 
food  for  comment. 

"I  don't  care ;  she's  pretty  as  a  Jersey  two- 
year-old." 

"It's  a  fine  day,"  observed  Winton;  and 
then,  to  background  Miss  Carteret  effectually 
as  a  topic :  "How  do  the  people  of  Argentine 
feel  about  the  opposition  to  our  line  ?" 

"They're  red-hot ;  you  can  put  your  money 
on  that.  The  C.  G.  R.'s  a  sure-enough 
tail-twister  where  there  ain't  no  competition. 
Your  road'll  get  every  pound  of  ore  in  the 
camp  if  it  ever  get*  through." 

Winton  made  a  mental  note  of  this  up-cast 
of  public  opinion,  and  set  it  over  against  the 
87 


A     FOOL      FOB,      LOVE 

friendly  attitude  of  the  official  Mr.  Biggin. 
It  was  very  evident  that  the  town-marshal  was 
serving  the  Rajah's  purpose  only  because  he 
had  to. 

"I  suppose  you  stand  with  your  townsmen 
on  that,  don't  you?"  he  ventured. 

"Now  you're  shouting :  that's  me." 

"Then  if  that  is  the  case,  we  won't  take  this 
little  holiday  of  ours  any  harder  than  we  can 
help.  When  the  court  business  is  settled — it 
won't  take  very  long — you  are  to  consider 
yourself  my  guest.  We  stop  at  the  Bucking 
ham." 

"Oh,  we  do,  do  we?  Say,  pardner,  that's 
white — mighty  white.  If  I'd  'a'  been  an  inch 
or  so  more'n  half  awake  this  morning  when 
that  old  b'iler-buster's  hired  man  routed  me 
out,  I'd  'a'  told  him  to  go  to  blazes  with  his 
warrant.  Nex'  time  I  will." 

Winton  shook  his  head.  "There  isn't  going 
to  be  any  'next  time,'  Peter,  my  son,"  he 
prophesied.  "When  Mr.  Darrah  gets  fairly 
down  to  business  he'll  throw  bigger  chunks 
than  the  Argentine  town-marshal  at  us." 
88 


THE      RAJAH     GIVES     AN     ORDER 

By  this  time  the  train  was  slowing  into  Car 
bonate,  and  a  few  minutes  after  the  stop  at 
the  crowded  platform  they  were  making  their 
way  up  the  single  bustling  street  of  the  town 
to  the  court-house. 

"Ever  see  so  many  tin-horns  and  bunco 
people  bunched  in  all  your  round-ups?"  said 
Biggin,  as  they  elbowed  through  the  uneasy 
shifting  groups  in  front  of  the  hotel. 

"Not  often,"  Winton  admitted.  "But  it's 
the  luck  of  the  big  camps :  they  are  the  dump 
ing-grounds  of  the  world  while  the  high  pres 
sure  is  on." 

The  ex-range-rider  turned  on  the  court 
house  steps  to  look  the  sidewalk  loungers  over 
with  narrowing  eyes. 

* 

"There's  Sheeny  Mike  and  Big  Otto  and 
half  a  dozen  others  right  there  in  front  o'  the 
Buckingham  that  couldn't  stay  to  breathe 
twice  in  Argentine.  And  this  town's  got  a 
po-lice !"  —  the  comment  with  lip-curling 
scorn. 

"It  also  has  a  county  court  which  is  prob 
ably  waiting  for  us,"  said  Winton ;  whereupon 
89 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

they  went  in  to  appease  the  offended  majesty 
of  the  law. 

As  Winton  had  predicted,  his  answer  to  the 
court  summons  was  a  mere  formality.  On 
parting  with  his  chief  at  the  Argentine  station 
platform,  Adams'  first  care  had  been  to  wire 
news  of  the  arrest  to  the  Utah  headquarters. 
Hence  Winton  found  the  company's  attorney 
waiting  for  him  in  Judge  Whitcomb's  court 
room,  and  his  release  on  an  appearance  bond 
was  only  a  matter  of  moments. 

The  legal  affair  dismissed,  there  ensued  a 
weary  interval  of  time-killing.  There  was  no 
train  back  to  Argentine  until  nearly  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  hours 
dragged  heavily  for  the  two,  who  had  nothing 
to  do  but  wait.  Biggin  endured  his  part  of  it 
manfully  till  the  midday  dinner  had  been  dis 
cussed;  then  he  drifted  off  with  one  of  Win- 
ton's  cigars  between  his  teeth,  saying  that  he 
should  "take  poison"  and  shoot  up  the  town 
if  he  could  not  find  some  more  peaceful  means 
of  keeping  his  blood  in  circulation. 

It  was  a  little  after  three  o'clock,  and  Win- 
90 


ton  was  sitting  at  the  writing-table  in  the 
lobby  of  the  hotel  elaborating  his  hasty  note 
book  data  of  the  morning's  inspection,  when 
a  boy  came  in  with  a  telegram.  The  young 
engineer  was  not  so  deeply  engrossed  in  his 
work  as  to  be  deaf  to  the  colloquy. 

"Mr.  John  Winton?  Yes,  he  is  here  some 
where,"  said  the  clerk  in  answer  to  the  boy's 
question;  and  after  an  identifying  glance: 
"There  he  is — over  at  the  writing-table." 

Winton  turned  in  his  chair  and  saw  the  boy 
coming  toward  him;  also  he  saw  the  ruffian 
pointed  out  by  Biggin  from  the  court-house 
steps  and  labeled  "Sheeny  Mike"  lounging 
up  to  the  clerk's  desk  for  a  whispered  ex 
change  of  words  with  the  bediamonded  gen 
tleman  behind  it. 

What  followed  was  cataclysmic  in  its  way. 
The  lounger  took  three  staggering  lurches  to 
ward  Winton,  brushed  the  messenger  boy 
aside,  and  burst  out  in  a  storm  of  maudlin  in 
vective. 

"Sign  yerself  'Winton'  now,  do  ye,  ye  low- 
down,  turkey-trodden — " 
91 


A     FOOL     FOR     I,  O  V  E 

"One  minute,"  said  Winton  curtly,  taking 
the  telegram  from  the  boy  and  signing  for  it. 

"I'll  give  ye  more'n  ye  can  carry  away  in 
less'n  half  that  time — see?"  was  the  minatory 
retort;  and  the  threat  was  made  good  by  an 
awkward  buffet  which  would  have  knocked  the 
engineer  out  of  his  chair  if  he  had  remained 
in  it. 

Now  Winton's  eyes  were  gray  and  stead 
fast,  but  his  hair  was  of  that  shade  of  brown 
which  takes  the  tint  of  dull  copper  in  certain 
lights,  and  he  had  a  temper  which  went  with 
the  red  in  his  hair  rather  than  with  the  gray 
in  his  eyes.  Wherefore  his  attempt  to  placate 
his  assailant  was  something  less  than  diplo 
matic. 

"You  drunken  scoundrel !"  he  snapped.  "If 
you  don't  go  about  your  business  and  let  me 
alone,  I'll  turn  you  over  to  the  police  with  a 
broken  bone  or  two !" 

The  bully's  answer  was  a  blow  delivered 

straight  from  the  shoulder — too  straight  to 

harmonize  with  the  fiction  of  drunkenness. 

Winton  saw  the  sober  purpose  in  it  and  went 

92 


THE     RAJAH     GIVES     AN     ORDER 

battle-mad,  as  a  hasty  man  will.  Being  a 
skilful  boxer, — which  his  antagonist  was  not,. 
— he  did  what  he  had  to  do  neatly  and  with 
commendable  despatch.  Down,  up;  down» 
up ;  down  a  third  time,  and  then  the  bystand 
ers  interfered. 

"Hold  on!" 

"That'll  do!" 

"Don't  you  see  he's  drunk  ?" 

"Enough's  as  good  as  a  feast — let  him  go.'r 

Winton's  blood  was  up,  but  he  desisted, 
breathing  threatenings.  Whereat  Biggin 
shouldered  his  way  into  the  circle. 

"Pay  your  bill  and  let's  hike  out  o'  this, 
pronto!"  he  said  in  a  low  tone.  "You  ain't  got 
no  time  to  fool  with  a  Carbonate  justice  shop." 

But  Winton  was  not  to  be  brought  to  his 
senses  so  easily. 

"Run  away  from  that  swine?  Not  if  I 
know  it.  Let  him  take  it  into  court  if  he  wants 
to.  I'll  be  there,  too." 

The  beaten  one  was  up  now  and  apparently 
looking  for  an  officer. 

"I'm  takin'  ye  all  to  witness,"  he  rasped. 
7  93 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

"I  was  on'y  askin'  him  to  cash  up  what  he 
lost  to  me  las'  night,  and  he  jumps  me.  But 
I'll  stick  him  if  there's  any  law  in  this  camp." 

Now  all  this  time  Winton  had  been  holding 
the  unopened  telegram  crumpled  in  his  fist, 
but  when  Biggin  pushed  him  out  of  the  circle 
and  thrust  him  up  to  the  clerk's  desk,  he  be 
thought  him  to  read  the  message.  It  was  Vir 
ginia's  warning,  signed  by  Adams,  and  a  sin 
gle  glance  at  the  closing  sentence  was  enough 
to  cool  him  suddenly. 

"Pay  the  bill,  Biggin,  and  join  me  in  the 
billiard-room,  quick!"  he  whispered,  pressing 
money  into  the  town-marshal's  hand  and  los 
ing  himself  in  the  crowd.  And  when  Biggin 
had  obeyed  his  instructions:  "Now  for  a 
back  way  out  of  this,  if  there  is  one.  We'll 
have  to  take  to  the  hills  till  train  time." 

They  found  a  way  through  the  bar  and  out 
into  a  side  street  leading  abruptly  up  to  the 
spruce-clad  hills  behind  the  town.  Biggin  held 
his  peace  until  they  were  safe  from  immediate 
danger  of  pursuit.  Then  his  curiosity  got 
the  better  of  him. 

94 


THE     E,  A  J  A  H     GIVES     AN     O  R  D  E  B, 

"Didn't  take  you  more'n  a  week  to  change 
your  mind  about  pullin'  it  off  with  that  tin 
horn  scrapper  in  the  courts,  did  it?" 

"No,"  said  Winton. 

"  'Tain't  none  o'  my  business,  but  I'd  like 
to  know  what  stampeded  you." 

"A  telegram," — shortly.  "It  was  a  put- 
up  job  to  have  me  locked  up  on  a  criminal 
charge,  and  so  hold  me  out  another  day." 

Biggin  grinned.  "The  old  b'iler-buster 
again.  Say,  he's  a  holy  terror,  ain't  he  ?" 

"He  doesn't  mean  to  let  me  build  my  rail 
road  if  he  can  help  it." 

The  ex-cowboy  found  his  sack  of  chip  to 
bacco  and  dexterously  rolled  a  cigarette  in  a 
bit  of  brown  wrapping-paper. 

"If  that's  the  game,  Mr.  Sheeny  Mike,  or 
his  backers,  will  be  most  likely  to  play  it  to  a 
finish,  don't  you  guess  ?" 

"How?" 

"By  havin'  a  po-liceman  layin'  for  you  at 
the  train." 

"I  hadn't  thought  of  that." 

"Well,  I  can  think  you  out  of  it,  I  reckon. 
95 


A     FOOL     FOB     LOVE 

The  branch  train  is  a  'commodation,  and  it'll 
stop  most  anywhere  if  you  throw  up  your 
hand  at  it.  We  can  take  out  through  the 
woods  and  across  the  hills,  and  mog  up  the 
track  a  piece.  How'll  that  do?" 

"It  will  do  for  me,  but  there  is  no  need  of 
your  tramping  when  you  can  just  as  well  ride." 

But  now  that  side  of  Mr.  Peter  Biggin 
which  endears  him  and  his  kind  to  every  man 
who  has  ever  shared  his  lonely  round-ups,  or 
broken  bread  with  him  in  his  comfortless 
shack,  came  uppermost. 

"What  do  you  take  me  fer?"  was  the  way 
it  vocalized  itself;  but  there  was  more  than  a 
formal  oath  of  loyal  allegiance  in  the  curt 
question. 

"For  a  man  and  a  brother,"  said  Winton 
heartily ;  and  they  set  out  together  to  waylay 
the  outgoing  train  at  some  point  beyond  the 
danger  limit. 

It  was  accomplished  without  further  mis 
hap,  and  the  short  winter  day  was  darkening 
to  twilight  when  the  train  came  in  sight  and 
the  engineer  slowed  to  their  signal. 
96 


THE     RAJAH     GIVES     AN      ORDER 

climbed  aboard,  and  when  they  had  found  a 
seat  In  the  smoker  the  chief  of  construction 
spoke  to  the  ex-cowboy  as  to  a  friend. 

"I  hope  Adams  has  knocked  out  a  good 
(Jay's  work  for  us,"  he  said. 

"Your  pardner  with  the  store  hat  and  the 
stinkin'  cigaroots? — he's  all  right,"  said  Big 
gin  ;  and  it  so  chanced  that  at  the  precise  mo 
ment  of  the  saying  the  subject  of  it  was  stand 
ing  with  the  foreman  of  track-layers  at  a  gap 
in  the  new  line  just  beyond  and  above  the 
Rosemary's  siding  at  Argentine,  his  day's 
work  ended,  and  his  men  loaded  on  the  flats 
for  the  run  down  to  camp  over  the  lately-laid 
rails  of  the  lateral  loop. 

"Not  such  a  bad  day,  considering  the  new 
ness  of  us  and  the  bridge  at  the  head  of  the 
gulch,"  he  said,  half  to  himself.  And  then 
more  pointedly  to  the  foreman:  "Bridge- 
builders  to  the  front  at  the  first  crack  of  dawn, 
Mike.  Why  wasn't  this  break  filled  in  the 
grading?" 

"Sure,  sorr,  'tis  a  dhrain  it  is,"  said  the 
Irishman;  "from  the  placer  up  beyant,"  he 
97 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

added,  pointing  to  a  washed-out  excoriation 
on  the  steep  upper  slope  of  the  mountain. 
"Major  Evarts  did  be  tellin'  us  we'd  have  the 
lawyers  afther  us  hot-fut  again  if  we  didn't 
be  lavin'  ut  open  the  full  width." 

"Mmph !"  said  Adams,  looking  the  ground 
over  with  a  critical  eye.  "It's  a  bad  bit.  It 
wouldn't  take  much  to  bring  that  whole  slide 
down  on  us  if  it  wasn't  frozen  solid.  Who 
owns  the  placer  ?" 

"Two  fellies  over  in  Carbonate.  The  com 
pany  did  be  thryin'  to  buy  the  claim,  but  the 
sharps  wouldn't  sell — bein'  put  up  to  hold  ut 
by  thim  C.  G.  R.  divils.  It's  more  throu- 
ble  we'll  be  havin'  here,  I'm  thinking." 

While  they  lingered  a  shrill  whistle,  echo 
ing  like  an  eldrich  laugh  among  the  cliffs  of 
the  upper  gorge,  announced  the  coming  of  a 
train  from  the  direction  of  Carbonate.  Adams 
looked  at  his  watch. 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  that  is,"  he  mused. 
"It's  an  hour  too  soon  for  the  accommoda 
tion.  By  Jove !" 

The  exclamation  directed  itself  at  a  one-car 
98 


THE      RAJAH      GIVES     AN     ORDER 

train  which  came  thundering  down  the  canyon 
to  pull  in  on  the  siding  beyond  the  Rosemary. 
The  car  was  a  passenger  coach,  well-lighted, 
and  from  his  post  on  the  embankment  Adams 
could  see  armed  men  filling  the  windows.  Mi 
chael  Branagan  saw  them,  too,  and  the  fight 
ing  Celt  in  him  rose  to  tire  occasion. 

"  'Tis  Donnybrook  Fair  we've  come  to  this 
time,  Misther  Adams.  Shall  I  call  up  the  b'ys 
wid  their  guns  ?" 

"Not  yet.  Let's  wait  and  see  what  hap 
pens." 

What  happened  was  a  peaceful  sortie.  Two 
men,  each  with  a  kit  of  some  kind  borne  in  a 
sack,  dropped  from  the  car,  crossed  the  creek, 
and  struggled  up  the  hill  through  the  un- 
bridged  gap.  Adams  waited  until  they  were 
fairly  on  the  right  of  way,  then  he  called 
down  to  them. 

"Halt,  there !  you  two.  This  is  corporation 
property." 

"Not  much  it  ain't!"  retorted  one  of  the 
trespassers  gruffly.    "It's  the  drain-way  from 
our  placer  up  yonder." 
99 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  up  there  at  this 
time  of  night?" 

"None  o'  your  blame  business !"  was  the  ex 
plosive  counter-shot. 

"Perhaps  it  isn't,"  said  Adams  mildly. 
"Just  the  same,  I'm  thirsting  to  know.  Call 
it  vulgar  curiosity  if  you  like." 

"All  right,  you  can  know,  and  be  cussed  to 
you.  We're  goin'  to  work  our  claim.  Got 
anything  to  say  against  it?" 

"Oh,  no,"  rejoined  Adams;  and  when  the 
twain  had  disappeared  in  the  upper  darkness 
he  went  down  the  grade  with  Branagan  and 
took  his  place  on  the  man-loaded  flats  for  the 
run  to  the  construction  camp,  thinking  more 
of  the  lately-arrived  car  with  its  complement 
of  armed  men  than  of  the  two  miners  who  had 
calmly  announced  their  intention  of  working 
a  placer  claim  on  a  high  mountain,  without 
water,  and  in  the  dead  of  winter !  By  which  it 
will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams,  C.  E. 
M.  I.  T.  Boston,  had  something  yet  to  learn 
in  the  matter  of  practical  field  work. 

By  the  time  Ah  Foo  had  served  him  his 
100 


THE     RAJAH     GIVES     AN     ORDER 

solitary  supper  in  the  dinkey  he  had  quite 
forgotten  the  incident  of  the  mysterious  placer 
miners.  Worse  than  this,  it  had  never  oc 
curred  to  him  to  connect  their  movements  witK 
the  Rajah's  plan  of  campaign.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  thinking  altogether  of  the  car 
load  of  armed  men,  and  trying  to  devise  some 
means  of  finding  out  how  they  were  to  be  em 
ployed  in  furthering  the  Rajah's  designs. 

The  means  suggested  themselves  after  sup 
per,  and  he  went  alone  over  to  Argentine  to 
spend  a  half-hour  in  the  bar  of  the  dance-hall 
listening  to  the  gossip  of  the  place.  When 
he  had  learned  what  he  wanted  to  know,  he 
forthfared  to  meet  Winton  at  the  incoming 
train. 

"We  are  in  for  it  now,"  he  said,  when  they 
had  crossed  the  creek  to  the  dinkey  and  the 
Chinaman  was  bringing  Winton's  belated  sup 
per.  "The  Rajah  has  imported  a  carload  of 
armed  mercenaries,  and  he  is  going  to  clean 
us  all  out  to-morrow:  arrest  everybody  from 
the  gang  foremen  up." 

Winton's  eyebrows  lifted.  "So?  that  is  a 
101 


A     FOOL     FOB,     LOVE 

pretty  large  contract.  Has  he  men  enough 
to  do  it?" 

"Not  so  many  men.  But  they  are  sworn-in 
deputies,  with  the  sheriff  of  Ute  County  in 
command — a  posse,  in  fact.  So  he  has  the 
law  on  his  side." 

"Which  is  more  than  he  had  when  he  set 
a  thug  on  me  this  afternoon  at  Carbonate," 
said  Winton  sourly ;  and  he  told  Adams  about 
the  misunderstanding  in  the  lobby  of  the 
Buckingham.  His  friend  whistled  under  his 
breath.  "By  Jove !  that's  pretty  rough.  Do 
you  suppose  the  Rajah  dictated  any  such  Lu- 
cretia  Borgia  thing  as  that?" 

Winton  took  time  to  think  about  it  and  ad 
mitted  a  doubt,  as  he  had  not  before.  Believ 
ing  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  fit  for  treasons, 
stratagems,  and  spoils  in  his  official  capacity 
of  vice-president  of  a  fighting  corporation,  he 
was  none  the  less  disposed  to  find  excuses  for 
Miss  Virginia  Carteret's  uncle. 

"I  did  think  so  at  first,  but  I  guess  it  was 
only  the  misguided  zeal  of  some  understrap 
per.  Of  course,  word  has  gone  out  all  along 
102 


THE      B,  A  J  A  H      GIVES      AN      ORDEE 

the  C.  G.  R.  line  that  we  are  to  be  delayed 
by  every  possible  expedient." 

But  Adams  shook  his  head. 

"Mr.  Darrah  dictated  that  move  in  his 
own  proper  person." 

"How  do  you  know  that?" 

"You  had  a  message  from  me  this  after 
noon?" 

"I  did." 

"What  did  you  think  of  it?" 

"I  thought  you  might  have  left  out  the 
first  part  of  it;  also  that  you  might  have 
made  the  latter  half  a  good  bit  more  explicit." 

A  slow  smile  spread  itself  over  Adams' 
impassive  face. 

"Every  man  has  his  limitations,"  he  said. 
"I  did  the  best  I  could.  But  the  Rajah  knew 
very  well  what  he  was  about — otherwise  there 
would  have  been  no  telegram." 

Winton  sent  the  Chinaman  out  for  another 
cup  of  tea  before  he  said,  "Did  Miss  Carteret 
come  here  alone?" 

"Oh,  no;    Calvert  came  with  her." 

"What  brought  them  here?" 
103 


A      FOOL      FOR      LOVE 

Adams  spread  his  hands. 
"What  makes  any  woman  do  precisely  the 
most  unexpected  thing?" 

Winton  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Finally 
he  said :  "I  hope  you  did  what  you  could  to 
make  it  pleasant  for  her." 

"I  did.     And  I  didn't  hear  her  complain." 
"That  was  low-down  in  you,  Morty." 
Adams  chuckled  reminiscently.     "Had  to 
do  it  to  make  my  day-before-yesterday  lie 
hold  water.     And  she  was  immensely  taken 
with  the  scrawls,  especially  with  one  of  them." 
Winton  flushed  under  the  bronze. 
"I  suppose  I  don't  need  to  ask  which  one." 
Adams'  grin  was  a  measure  of  his  compla 
cence. 

"Well,  hardly." 
"She  took  it  away  with  her?" 
"Took  it,  or  tore  it  up,  I  forget  which," 
"Tell  me,  Morty,  was  she  very  angry?" 
The  other  took  the  last  hint  of  laughter 
out  of  his  eyes    before    he  said    solemnly: 
"You'll  never  know  how  thankful  I  was  that 
you  were  twenty  miles  away." 
104 


THE      KAJAH      GIVES     AN      ORDES 

Winton's  cup  was  full,  and  he  turned  the 
talk  abruptly  to  the  industrial  doings  and 
accomplishments  of  the  day.  Adams  made  a 
verbal  report  which  led  him  by  successive 
steps  up  to  the  twilight  hour  when  he  had 
stood  with  Branagan  on  the  brink  of  the 
placer  drain,  but,  strangely  enough,  there 
was  no  stirring  of  memory  to  recall  the  inci 
dent  of  the  upward-climbing  miners. 

When  Winton  rose  he  said  something  about 
mounting  a  night  guard  on  the  engine,  which 
was  kept  under  steam  at  all  hours ;  and  shortly 
afterward  he  left  the  dinkey  ostensibly  to  do 
it,  declining  Adams'  offer  of  company.  But 
once  out-of-doors  he  climbed  straight  to  the 
operator's  tent  on  the  snow-covered  slope. 
Carter  had  turned  in,  but  he  sat  up  in  his 
bunk  at  the  noise  of  the  intrusion. 

"That  you,  Mr.  Winton?  Want  to  send 
something?"  he  asked. 

"No,  go  to  sleep.  I'll  write  a  wire  and 
leave  it  for  you  to  send  in  the  morning." 

He  sat  down  at  the  packing-case  instru 
ment  table  and  wrote  out  a  brief  report  of  the 
105 


A     FOOL      FOR     LOVE 

day's  progress  in  track-laying  for  the  gen 
eral  manager's  record.  But  when  Carter's 
regular  breathing  told  him  he  was  alone  he 
pushed  the  pad  aside,  took  down  the  sending- 
hook,  and  searched  until  he  had  found  the 
original  copy  of  the  message  which  had  reach 
ed  him  at  the  moment  of  cataclysms  in  the 
lobby  of  the  Buckingham. 

"Um,"  he  said,  and  his  heart  grew  warm 
within  him.  "It's  just  about  as  I  expected: 
Morty  didn't  have  anything  whatever  to  do 
with  it — except  to  sign  and  send  it  as  she 
commanded  him  to."  And  the  penciled  sheet 
was  folded  carefully  and  filed  in  permanence 
in  the  inner  breast  pocket  of  his  brown  duck 
shooting-coat. 

The  moon  was  rising  behind  the  eastern 
mountain  when  he  extinguished  the  candle  and 
went  out.  Below  lay  the  chaotic  construction 
camp  buried  in  silence  and  in  darkness  save 
for  the  lighted  windows  of  the  dinkey.  He 
was  not  quite  ready  to  go  back  to  Adams,  and 
after  making  a  round  of  the  camp  and  bid 
ding  the  engine  watchman  keep  a  sharp  look- 
106 


THE     KAJAH     GIVES     AN     ORDER 

out  against  a  possible  night  surprise,  he  set 
out  to  walk  over  the  newly-laid  track  of  the 
day. 

Another  half-hour  had  elapsed,  and  a  wan 
ing  moon  was  clearing  the  topmost  crags  of 
Pacific  Peak  when  he  came  out  on  the  high 
embankment  opposite  the  Rosemary,  having 
traversed  the  entire  length  of  the  lateral  loop 
and  inspected  the  trestle  at  the  gulch  head 
by  the  light  of  a  blazing  spruce-branch. 

The  station  with  its  two  one-car  trains,  and 
the  shacks  of  the  little  mining-camp  beyond, 
lay  shimmering  ghost-like  in  the  new-born 
light  of  the  moon.  The  engine  of  the  sheriff's 
car  was  humming  softly  with  a  note  like  the 
distant  swarming  of  bees,  and  from  the  dance- 
hall  in  Argentine  the  snort  of  a  trombone  and 
the  tinkling  clang  of  a  cracked  piano  floated 
out  upon  the  frosty  night  air. 

Winton  turned  to  go  back.  The  windows 
of  the  Rosemary  were  all  dark,  and  there  was 
nothing  to  stay  for.  So  he  thought,  at  all 
events;  but  if  he  had  not  been  musing  ab 
stractedly  upon  things  widely  separated  from 
107 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

his  present  surroundings,  he  might  have  re 
marked  two  tiny  stars  of  lantern-light  high 
on  the  placer  ground  above  the  embankment ; 
or,  failing  the  sight,  he  might  have  heard  the 
dull,  measured  slumph  of  a  churn-drill  bur 
rowing  deep  in  the  frozen  earth  of  the  slope. 

As  it  was,  a  pair  of  brown  eyes  blinded 
him,  and  the  tones  of  a  voice  sweeter  than  the 
songs  of  Oberon's  sea-maid  filled  his  ears. 
Wherefore  he  neither  saw  nor  heard ;  and  tak 
ing  the  short  cut  across  the  mouth  of  the  lat 
eral  gulch  back  to  camp,  he  boarded  the 
dinkey  and  went  to  bed  without  disturbing 
Adams. 

The  morning  of  the  day  to  come  broke 
clear  and  still,  with  the  stars  paling  one  by 
one  at  the  pointing  finger  of  the  dawn,  and 
the  frost-rime  lying  thick  and  white  like  a 
snowfall  of  erect  and  glittering  needles  on 
iron  and  steel  and  wood. 

Obedient  to  orders,  the  bridge-builders  were 

getting  out  their  hand-car  at  the  construction 

camp,  the  wheels   shrilling    merrily   on  the 

frosted  rails,  and    the    men    stamping    and 

108 


THE     B,  A  J  A  H      GIVES     AN      O  K  D  E  tt 

swinging  their  arms  to  start  the  sluggish 
night-blood.  Suddenly,  like  the  opening  gun 
of  a  battle,  the  dull  rumble  of  a  mighty  ex 
plosion  trembled  upon  the  still  air,  followed 
instantly  by  a  sound  as  of  a  passing  ava 
lanche. 

Winton  was  out  and  running  up  the  track 
before  the  camp  was  fairly  aroused.  What 
he  saw  when  he  gained  the  hither  side  of  the 
lateral  gulch  was  a  sight  to  make  a  strong 
man  weep.  A  huge  landslide,  starting  from 
the  frozen  placer  ground  high  up  on  the  west 
ern  promontory,  had  swept  every  vestige  of 
track  and  embankment  into  the  deep  bed  of 
the  creek  at  a  point  precisely  opposite  Mr* 
Somerville  Darrah's  private  car. 


109 


VII 

THE  MAJESTY   OF   THE  LAW 

Virginia  was  up  and  dressed  when  the  sul 
len  shock  of  the  explosion  set  the  windows 
jarring  in  the  Rosemary. 

She  hurried  out  upon  the  observation  plat 
form  and  so  came  to  look  upon  the  ruin 
wrought  by  the  landslide  while  the  dust-like 
smoke  of  the  dynamite  still  hung  in  the  air. 

"Rather  unlucky  for  our  friends  the 
enemy,"  said  a  colorless  voice  behind  her; 
and  she  had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that 
Jastrow  had  been  lying  in  wait  for  her. 

She  turned  upon  him  quickly. 

"Was  it  an  accident,  Mr.  Jastrow?" 

"How  could  it  be  anything  else?"  he  in 
quired  mildly. 

"I  don't  know.  But  there  was  an  explo 
sion:  I  heard  it." 

"It  is  horribly  unfair,"  she  went  on.  "I 
110 


THE     MAJESTY     OF     THE     ~L  A  W 

understand  the  sheriff  is  here.  Couldn't  he 
have  prevented  this?" 

The  secretary's  rejoinder  was  a  platitude: 
"Everything  is  fair  in  love  or  war." 

"But  this  is  neither,"  she  retorted. 

"Think  not?"  he  said  coolly.  "Wait,  and 
you'll  see.  And  a  word  in  your  ear,  Miss 
Carter et :  you  are  one  of  us,  you  know,  and 
you  mustn't  be  disloyal.  I  know  what  you 
did  yesterday  after  you  read  those  tele 
grams." 

Virginia's  face  became  suddenly  wooden. 
Until  that  moment  it  had  not  occurred  to  her 
that  Jastrow's  motive  in  showing  her  the  two 
telegrams  might  have  been  carefully  calcu 
lated. 

"I  have  never  given  you  the  right  to  speak 
to  me  that  way,  Mr.  Jastrow,"  she  said,  with 
the  faintest  possible  emphasis  on  the  courtesy 
prefix;  and  with  that  she  turned  from  him 
to  focus  her  field-glass  on  the  construction 
camp  below. 

At  the  Utah  stronghold  all  was  activity  of 
the  fiercest.  Winton  had  raced  back  with  his 
111 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

news  of  the  catastrophe,  and  the  camp  was 
alive  with  men  clustering  like  bees  and  swarm 
ing  upon  the  flat-cars  of  the  material-train  to 
be  taken  to  the  front. 

While  she  looked,  studiously  ignoring  the 
man  behind  her,  Virginia  saw  the  big  octopod 
engine  clamoring  up  the  grade.  In  a  twink 
ling  the  men  were  off  and  at  work. 

Virginia's  color  rose  and  the  brown  eyes 
filled  swiftly.  One  part  of  her  ideal  was 
courage  of  the  sort  that  rises  the  higher  for 
reverses.  But  at  the  instant  she  remembered 
the  secretary,  and,  lest  he  should  spy  upon 
her  emotion,  she  turned  and  took  refuge  in 
the  car. 

In  the  Rosemary  the  waiter  was  laying  the 
plates  for  breakfast,  and  Bessie  and  the  Rev 
erend  William  were  at  the  window,  watching 
the  stirring  industry  battle  now  in  full  swing 
on  the  opposite  slope.  Virginia  joined  them. 

"Isn't  it  a  shame!"  she  said.  "Of  course, 
I  want  our  side  to  win;  but  it  seems  such  a 
pity  that  we  can't  fight  fairly." 

Calvert  said,  "Isn't  what  a  shame?"  there- 
112 


THE      MAJESTY      OF      THE      LAW 

by  eliciting  a  crisp  explanation  from  Virginia 
in  which  she  set  well-founded  suspicion  in  the 
light  of  fact. 

The  Reverend  Billy  shook  his  head. 

"Such  things  may  be  within  the  law — of 
business;  but  they  will  surely  breed  bad 
blood—" 

The  interruption  was  the  Rajah  in  his 
proper  person,  bustling  out  fiercely  to  a  con 
ference  with  his  Myrmidons.  By  tacit  con 
sent  the  three  at  the  window  fell  silent. 

There  was  a  hasty  mustering  of  armed 
men  under  the  windows  of  the  Rosemary,  and 
they  heard  SKerifiP  Deckert's  low-voiced  in 
structions  to  his  posse. 

"Take  it  slow  and  easy,  boys,  and  don't 
get  rattled.  Now,  then;  guns  to  the  front! 
Steady!" 

The  Reverend  Billy  rose. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  said  Virginia. 

"I'm  going  to  give  Winton  a  tip  if  it's  the 
last  thing  I  ever  do." 

She  shook  her  head  and  pointed  eastward 
to  the  mouth  of  the  lateral  gulch.  Under 
113 


A     FOOL      FOR      LOVE 

cover  of  a  clump  of  evergreen-scrub  a  man 
in  a  wideflapped  hat  and  leather  breeches  was 
climbing  swiftly  to  the  level  of  the  new  line, 
cautiously  waving  a  handkerchief  as  a  peace 
token.  "That  is  the  man  who  arrested  Mr. 
Winton  yesterday.  This  time  he  is  going  to 
fight  on  the  other  side.  He'll  carry  the 
warning." 

"Think  so?"  said  Calvert. 

"I  am  sure  of  it.  Open  the  window,  please. 
I  want  to  see  better." 

As  yet  there  was  no  sign  of  preparation  on 
the  embankment.  For  the  moment  the  rifles 
of  the  track  force  were  laid  aside,  and  every 
man  was  plying  pick  or  shovel. 

Winton  was  in  the  thick  of  the  pick-and- 
shovel  melee,  urging  it  on,  when  Biggin  ran 
up. 

"Hi !"  he  shouted.  "Fixin'  to  take  another 
play-day  in  Carbonate?  Lookee  down 
yonder !" 

Winton  looked  and  became  alive  to  the  pos 
sibilities  in  the  turning  of  a  leaf. 

"Guns!"  he  yelled;  and  at  the  word  of 
114 


THE     MAJESTY     OF     THE     LAW 

command  the  tools  were  flung  aside,  and  the 
track  force,  over  two  hundred  strong,  became 
an  army. 

"Mulcahey,  take  half  the  men  and  go  up 
the  grade  till  you  can  rake  those  fellows  with 
out  hitting  the  car.  Branagan,  you  take  the 
other  half  and  go  down  till  you  can  cross-fire 
with  Mulcahey.  Aim  low,  both  of  you;  and 
the  man  who  fires  before  he  gets  the  word 
from  me  will  break  his  neck  at  a  rope's  end. 
Pall  in!" 

"By  Jove !"  said  Adams.  "Are  you  going 
to  resist?  That  spells  felony,  doesn't  it?" 

Winton  pointed  to  the  waiting  octopod. 

"I'm  going  to  order  the  Two-fifteen  down 
out  of  the  way:  you  may  go  with  her  if  you 
like." 

"I  guess  not !"  quoth  the  assistant,  calmly 
lighting  a  fresh  cigarette.  And  then  to  the 
water-boy,  who  was  acting  quartermaster: 
"Give  me  a  rifle  and  a  cartridge-belt,  Chunky, 
and  I'll  stay  here  with  the  boss." 

"And  where  do  I  come  in?"  said  Biggin  to 
Winton  reproachfully. 
115 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

"You'll  stay  out,  if  your  head's  level. 
You've  done  enough  already  to  send  you  to 
Canyon  City." 

"I  ain't  a-forgettin'  nothing,"  said  Peter 
cheerfully,  casting  himself  flat  behind  a  heap 
of  earth  on  the  dump-edge. 

While  the  sheriff's  posse  was  picking  its 
way  gingerly  over  the  loose  rock  and  earth 
dam  formed  by  the  landslide,  the  window  went 
up  in  the  Rosemary  and  Winton  saw  Vir 
ginia.  Without  meaning  to,  she  gave  him  his 

battle-word. 

i 

"We  are  a  dozen  Winchesters  to  your  one, 
Mr.  Deckert,  and  we  shall  resist  force  witH 
force.  Order  your  men  back  or  there  will  be 
trouble." 

Winton  stood  out  on  the  edge  of  the  cut 
ting,  a  solitary  figure  where  a  few  minutes 
before  the  earth  had  been  flying  from  a  hun 
dred  shovels. 

The  sheriff's  reply  was  an  order,  but  not 
for  retreat. 

"He's  one  of  the  men  we  want ;  cover  him !" 
he  commanded. 

116 


THE     MAJESTY     OF     THE     LAW 

Unless  the  public  occasion  appeals  strongly 
to  the  sympathies  or  the  passions,  a  picked-up 
sheriff's  posse  is  not  likely  to  have  very  good 
metal  in  it.  Peter  Biggin  laughed. 

"Don't  be  no  ways  nervous,"  he  said  in  an 
aside  to  Winton.  "Them  professional  veniry 
chumps  couldn't  hit  the  side  o'  Pacific  Peak." 

Winton  held  his  ground,  while  the  sheriff 
tried  to  drive  his  men  up  a  bare  slope  com 
manded  by  two  hundred  rifles  to  right  and 
left.  The  attempt  was  a  humiliating  failure. 
Being  something  less  than  soldiers  trained  to 
do  or  die,  the  deputies  hung  back  to  a  man. 

Virginia  could  not  forbear  a  smile.  The 
sheriff  burst  into  caustic  profanity.  Where 
upon  Mr.  Peter  Biggin  rose  up  and  sent  a 
bullet  to  plow  a  little  furrow  in  the  ice  within 
an  inch  of  Deckert's  heels. 

"Ex-cuse  me,  Bart,"  he  drawled,  "but  no 
cuss  words  don't  go." 

The  sheriff  ignored  Peter  Biggin  as  a  per 
son  who  could  be  argued  with  at  leisure  and 
turned  to  Winton. 

"Come  down !"  he  bellowed. 
117 


THE     MAJESTY     OF     THE     LAW 

<fUncle  Somerville,  can't  we  win  without 
calling  in  these  horrid  men  with  their  guns?" 

A  mere  shadow  of  a  grim  smile  came  and 
went  in  the  Rajah's  eyes. 

"An  unprejudiced  outsideh  might  say  that 
the  'horrid  men  with  their  guns'  were  on  top 
of  that  embankment,  my  deah — ten  to  ouh 
one,"  he  remarked. 

"But  I  should  think  we  might  win  in  some 
other  way,"  Virginia  persisted  undauntedly. 

Mr.  Darrah  pushed  his  plate  aside  and 
cleared  his  throat. 

"For  business  reasons  which  you — ah — 
wouldn't  undehstand,  we  can't  let  the  Utah 
finish  this  railroad  of  theirs  into  Carbonate 
this  winteh." 

"So  much  I  have  inferred.  But  Mr.  Win- 
ton  seems  to  be  very  determined." 

"Mmph !  I  wish  Mr.  Callowell  had  favehed 
us  with  some  one  else — any  one  else.  That 
young  fellow  is  a  bawn  fighteh,  my  deah." 

Virginia  had  a  bright  idea,  and  she  ad 
vanced  it  without  examining  too  closely  into 
its  ethical  part. 

119 


A      FOOL      FOE      LOVE 

Winton  laughed. 

"Let  me  return  the  invitation.  Come  up, 
and  you  may  read  your  warrants  to  us  all 
day." 

Deckert  withdrew  his  men,  and  at  Winton's 
signal  the  track-layers  came  in  and  the  earth 
began  to  fly  again. 

Virginia  sighed  her  relief,  and  Bessie 
plucked  up  courage  to  go  to  the  window, 
which  she  had  deserted  in  the  moment  of  im 
pending  battle. 

"Breakfast  is  served,"  announced  the 
waiter  as  calmly  as  if  the  morning  meal  were 
the  only  matter  of  consequence  in  a  world  of 
happenings. 

They  gathered  about  the  table,  a  silent  trio 
made  presently  a  quartet  by  the  advent  of 
Mrs.  Carteret,  who  had  neither  seen  nor 
heard  anything  of  the  warlike  episode  with 
which  the  day  had  begun. 

Mr.  Darrah  was  late,  so  late  that  when  he 
came  in,  Virginia  was  the  only  one  of  the  four 
who  remained  at  table.     She  stayed  to  pour 
his  coffee  and  to  bespeak  peace. 
118 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

"Mr.  Winton  is  working  for  wages,  isn't 
he?"  she  asked. 

"Of  cou'se ;  big  money,  at  that.  His  sawt 
come  high." 

"Well,  why  can't  you  hire  him  away  from 
the  other  people?  Mr.  Callowell  might  not 
be  so  fortunate  next  time." 

The  Rajah  sat  back  in  his  chair  and  re 
garded  her  thoughtfully. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked. 

"Nothing  my  deah — nothing  at  all.  I  was 
just  wondering  how  a  woman's — ah — sense  of 
propo'tion  was  put  togetheh.  But  your  plan 
has  merit.  Do  I  understand  that  you  will 
faveh  me  with  your  help?" 

"Why,  ye-es,  certainly,  if  I  can,"  she  as 
sented,  not  without  dubiety.  "That  is,  I'll 
be  nice  to  Mr.  Winton." 

"That  is  precisely  what  I  mean,  my  deah. 
JVe'll  begin  by  having  him  heah  to  dinneh 
this  evening,  him  and  the  otheh  young  man — 
what's  his  name? — Adams." 

And  the  upshot  of  the  matter  was  a  dainty 
note  which  found  its  way  by  the  hands  of  the 
120 


private-car  porter  to  Winton,  laboring  man 
fully  at  his  task  of  repairing  the  landslide 
damages. 

"Mr.  Somerville  Darrah's  compliments  to  Mr. 
John  Winton  and  Mr.  Morton  P.  Adams,  and  he 
will  be  pleased  if  they  will  dine  with  the  party  in 
the  car  Rosemary  at  seven  o'clock. 

"Informal. 

"Wednesday,  December  the  Ninth." 


VIII 

THE    GEEEKS    BRINGING   GIFTS 

Adams  said  "By  Jove !"  in  his  most  cynical 
drawl  when  Winton  gave  him  the  dinner- 
bidding  to  read :  then  he  laughed. 

Winton  recovered  the  dainty  note,  folding 
it  carefully  and  putting  it  in  his  pocket.  The 
handwriting  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  tele 
gram  abstracted  from  Operator  Carter's 
sending-hook. 

"I  don't  see  anything  to  laugh  at,"  he  ob 
jected. 

"No?  First  the  Rajah  sends  the  sheriff's 
posse  packing  without  striking  a  blow,  and 
now  he  invites  us  to  dinner. 

"You  make  me  exceedingly  tired  at  odd 
moments,  Morty.  Why  can't  you  give  Mr. 
Darrah  the  credit  of  being  what  he  really  is 
at  bottom — a  right-hearted  Virginia  gentle 
man  of  the  old  school?" 


GREEKS      BRINGING      GIFTS 

"You  don't  mean  that  you  are  going  to 
accept!"  said  Adams,  aghast. 

"Certainly;    and  so  are  you." 

There  was  no  more  to  be  said,  and  Adams 
held  his  peace  while  Winton  scribbled  a  line 
of  acceptance  on  a  leaf  of  his  note-book  and 
sent  it  across  to  the  Rosemary  by  the  hand 
of  the  water-boy. 

Their  reception  at  the  steps  of  the  Rose 
mary  was  a  generous  proof  of  the  aptness  of 
that  aphorism  which  sums  up  the  status  post 
bellum  in  the  terse  phrase,  "After  war, 
peace."  Mr.  Darrah  met  them;  was  evi 
dently  waiting  for  them. 

"Come  in,  gentlemen;  come  in  and  be  at 
home," — this  with  a  hand  for  each.  "Vir 
ginia  allowed  you  wouldn't  faveh  us,  but  I  as 
sured  her  she  didn't  rightly  know  men  of  the 
world:  told  her  that  a  picayune  business 
affair  in  which  we  are  all  acting  as  corpora 
tion  proxies  needn't  spell  out  anything  like  a 
blood  feud  between  gentlemen." 

For  another  man  the  informal  table  gather 
ing  might  have  been  easily  prohibitive  of  con- 
123 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

fidences  a  deux,  even  with  a  Virginia  Carteret 
to  help,  but  Winton  was  far  above  the  tram- 
melings  of  time  and  place.  He  had  eyes  and 
ears  only  for  the  sweet-faced,  low-voiced 
young  woman  beside  him,  and  some  of  his 
replies  to  the  others  were  irrelevant  enough 
to  send  a  smile  around  the  board. 

"How  very  absent-minded  Mr.  Winton 
seems  to  be  this  evening!"  murmured  Bessie 
from  her  niche  between  Adams  and  the  Rev 
erend  Billy  at  the  farther  end  of  the  table. 
"He  isn't  quite  at  his  best,  is  he,  Mr.  Adams  ?" 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Adams,  matching  her 
undertone,  "very  far  from  it.  He  has  been  a 
bit  off  all  day :  touch  of  mountain  fever,  I'm 
afraid." 

"But  he  doesn't  look  at  all  ill,"  objected 
Miss  Bessie.  "I  should  say  he  is  a  perfect 
picture  of  rude  health." 

The  coffee  was  served,  and  Mrs.  Carteret 
was  rising.  Whereupon  Miss  Virginia 
handed  her  cup  to  Adams,  and  so  had  him  for 
her  companion  in  the  tete-a-tete  chair,  leaving 
[Winton  to  shift  for  himself. 
124 


GBEEKS     BRINGING     GIFTS 

The  shifting  process  carried  him  over  to 
the  Rajah  and  the  Reverend  Billy,  to  a  small 
table  in  a  corner  of  the  compartment,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  a  mild  cigar. 

Later,  when  Calvert  had  been  eliminated 
by  Miss  Bessie,  Winton  looked  to  see  the  true 
inwardness  of  the  dinner-bidding  made  mani 
fest  by  his  host. 

But  Mr.  Darrah  chatted  on,  affably  non 
committal,  and  after  a  time  Winton  began  to 
upbraid  himself  for  suspecting  the  ulterior 
motive.  And  when  he  finally  rose  to  excuse 
himself  on  a  letter-writing  plea,  his  leave- 
taking  was  that  of  the  genial  host  reluctant 
to  part  company  with  his  guest. 

"I've  enjoyed  your  conve'sation,  seh;  en 
joyed  it  right  much.  May  I  hope  you  will 
faveh  us  often  while  we  are  neighbors?" 

Winton  rose,  made  the  proper  acknowl 
edgments,  and  would  have  crossed  the  com 
partment  to  make  his  adieus  to  Mrs.  Carteret. 
But  at  that  moment  Virginia  came  between. 

"You  are  not  going  yet,  are  you,  Mr.  Win- 
ton?     Don't  hurry.      If  you  are    dying  to 
9  125 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

smoke  a  pipe,  as  Mr.  Adams  says  you  are,  we 
can  go  out  on  the  platform.  It  isn't  too  cold, 
is  it?" 

"It  is  clear  and  frosty,  a  beautiful  night," 
he  hastened  to  say.  "May  I  help  you  with 
your  coat?" 

So  presently  Winton  had  his  heart's  desire, 
which  was  to  be  alone  with  Virginia. 

She  nerved  herself  for  the  plunge, — her 
uncle's  plunge. 

"Your  part  in  the  building  of  this  other 
railroad  is  purely  a  business  affair,  is  it  not?" 

"My  personal  interest?  Quite  so;  a  mere 
matter  of  dollars  and  cents,  you  may  say." 

"If  you  should  have  another  offer,  from 
some  other  company — " 

"That  is  not  your  argument;  it  is  Mr. 
Darrah's.  You  know  well  enough  what  is  in 
volved:  honor,  integrity,  good  faith,  every 
thing  a  man  values,  or  should  value.  I  can't 
believe  you  would  ask  such  a  sacrifice  of  me 
— of  any  man. 

"Indeed,  I  do  not  ask  it,  Mr.  Winton.  But 
it  is  only  fair  that  3^ou  should  have  your 
126 


GEEEKS      B  B,  I  N  G  I  N  G      GIFTS 

Warning.  My  uncle  will  leave  no  stone  un 
turned  to  defeat  you." 

He  was  still  looking  into  her  eyes,  and  so 
had  courage  to  say  what  came  uppermost. 

"I  don't  care :  I  shall  fight  him  as  hard  as 
I  can,  but  I  shall  always  be  his  debtor  for  this 
evening.  Do  you  understand?" 

In  a  flash  her  mood  changed  and  she 
laughed  lightly. 

"Who  would  think  it  of  you,  Mr.  Winton  \ 
Of  all  men  I  should  have  said  you  were  the 
last  to  care  so  much  for  the  social  diversions. 
Shall  we  go  in?" 


127 


IX 


THE    BLOCK    SIGNAL 

If  Mr.  John  Winton,  C.E.,  stood  in  need 
of  a  moral  tonic,  as  Adams  had  so  delicately 
intimated  to  Miss  Bessie  Carteret,  it  was  ad 
ministered  in  quantity  sufficient  before  he 
slept  on  the  night  of  dinner-givings. 

For  a  clear-eyed  theorist,  free  from  all 
tieart-trammelings  and  able  to  grasp  the  un 
sentimental  fact,  the  enemy's  new  plan  of 
campaign  wrote  itself  quite  legibly.  With 
his  pick  and  choice  among  the  time-killing  ex 
pedients  the  Rajah  could  scarcely  have  found 
one  more  to  his  purpose  than  the  private  car 
Rosemary,  including  in  its  passenger  list  a 
Miss  Virginia  Carteret. 

128 


THE     BLOCK     SIGNAL, 

All  of  which  Adams,  substituting  friendly 
frankness  for  the  disciplinary  traditions  of 
the  service,  set  forth  in  good  Bostonian  Eng 
lish  for  the  benefit  and  behoof  of  his  chief, 
and  was  answered  according  to  his  deserts 
with  scoffings  and  deridings. 

"I  wasn't  born  yesterday,  Morty,  and  I'm 
not  so  desperately  asinine  as  you  seem  to 
think,"  was  the  besotted  one's  summing-up. 
"I  know  the  Rajah  doesn't  split  hairs  in  a 
business  fight,  but  he  is  hardly  unscrupulous 
enough  to  use  Miss  Carteret  as  a  cat's-paw." 

But  Adams  would  not  be  scoffed  aside  so 
easily. 

"You're  off  in  your  estimate  of  Mr.  Dar- 
rah,  Jack,  'way  off.  I  know  the  tradition: 
that  a  Southern  gentleman  is  all  chivalry  when 
it  comes  to  a  matter  touching  his  woman 
kind,  and  I  don't  controvert  it  as  a  general 
proposition.  But  the  Rajah  has  been  a  fight 
ing  Western  railroad  magnate  so  long  that 
his  accent  is  about  the  only  Southern  asset  he 
has  retained.  If  I'm  any  good  at  guessing, 
he  will  stick  at  nothing  to  gain  his  end." 
129 


A     FOOL,     FOE     LOVE 

Winton  admitted  the  impeachment  without 
prejudice  to  his  own  point  of  view. 

"Perhaps  you  are  right.  But  forewarned 
is  forearmed.  And  Miss  Virginia  is  not  go 
ing  to  lend  herself  to  any  such  nefarious 
scheme." 

"Not  consciously,  perhaps;  but  you  don't 
know  her  yet.  If  she  saw  a  good  chance  to 
take  the  conceit  out  of  you,  she'd  improve  it 
— without  thinking  overmuch  of  the  possible 
consequences  to  the  Utah  company." 

"Pshaw!"  said  Winton.  "That  is  another 
of  your  literary  inferences.  I've  met  her  only 
twice,  yet  I  venture  to  say  I  know  her  better 
than  you  do.  If  she  cared  anything  for  me 
— which  she  doesn't — " 

"Oh,  go  to  sleep!"  said  Adams,  who  was 
not  minded  to  argue  further  with  a  man  be 
sotted  ;  and  so  the  matter  went  by  default  for 
the  time. 

But  in  the  days  that  followed,  days  in  which 
the  sun  rose  and  set  in  cloudless  winter  splen 
dor  and  the  heavy  snows  still  held  aloof,  Ad 
ams'  prediction  wrought  itself  out  into  sober 
130 


THE      BLOCK     SIGNAL 

fact.  After  the  single  appeal  to  force,  Mr. 
Darrah  seemed  to  give  up  the  fight.  None 
the  less,  the  departure  of  the  Rosemary 
was  delayed,  and  its  hospitable  door  was  al 
ways  open  to  the  Utah  chief  of  construction 
and  his  assistant. 

It  was  very  deftly  done,  and  even  Adams, 
the  clear-eyed,  could  not  help  admiring  the 
Rajah's  skilful  finesse.  Of  formal  dinner- 
givings  there  might  easily  have  been  an  end, 
since  the  construction  camp  had  nothing  to 
offer  in  return.  But  the  formalities  were  stu 
diously  ignored,  and  the  two  young  men  were 
put  upon  a  footing  of  intimacy  and  encour 
aged  to  come  and  go  as  they  pleased. 

Winton  took  his  welcome  broadly,  as  what 
lover  would  not  ?  and  within  a  week  was  spend 
ing  most  of  his  evenings  in  the  Rosemary — 
this  at  a  time  when  every  waking  moment  of 
the  day  and  night  was  deeply  mortgaged  to> 
the  chance  of  success.  For  now  that  the 
Rajah  had  withdrawn  his  opposition,  Nature 
and  the  perversity  of  inanimate  things  had 
taken  a  hand,  and  for  a  fortnight  the  work 
131 


A     FOOL      FOB,     LOVE 

of  track-laying  paused  fairly  within  sight  of 
the  station  at  Argentine. 

First  it  was  a  carload  of  steel  accidentally 
derailed  and  dumped  into  Quartz  Creek  at 
precisely  the  worst  possible  point  in  the  lower 
canyon,  a  jagged,  rock-ribbed,  cliff-bound 
gorge  where  each  separate  piece  of  metal  had 
to  be  hoisted  out  singly  by  a  derrick  erected 
for  the  purpose — a  process  which  effectually 
blocked  the  track  for  three  entire  days.  Next 
it  was  another  landslide  (unhelped  by  dyna 
mite,  this)  just  above  the  station,  a  crawling 
cataract  of  loose,  sliding  shale  which,  pains 
takingly  dug  out  and  dammed  with  plank 
bulkhead  during  the  day,  would  pour  down 
and  bury  bulkhead,  buttresses,  and  the  very 
right  of  way  in  the  night. 

In  his  right  mind — the  mind  of  an  ambi 
tious  young  captain  of  industry  who  sees  de 
feat  with  dishonor  staring  him  in  the  face — 
Winton  would  have  fought  all  the  more  des 
perately  for  these  hindrances.  But,  unfor 
tunately,  he  was  no  longer  an  industry  cap 
tain  with  an  eye  single  to  success.  He  was 
l&t 


THE     BLOCK     SIGNAL 

become  that  anomaly  despised  of  the  working 
world — a  man  in  love. 

"It's  no  use  shutting  our  eyes  to  the  fact, 
Jack,"  said  Adams  one  evening,  when  his 
chief  was  making  ready  for  his  regular  de 
scent  upon  the  Rosemary.  "We  shall  have  to 
put  night  shifts  at  work  on  that  shale-slide  if 
we  hope  ever  to  get  past  it  with  the  rails." 

"Hang  the  shale!"  was  the  impatient  re 
joinder.  "I'm  no  galley  slave." 

Adams'  slow  smile  came  and  went  in  cyni 
cal  ripplings. 

"It  is  pretty  difficult  to  say  precisely  what 
you  are  just  now.  But  I  can  prophesy  what 
you  are  going  to  be  if  you  don't  wake  up  and 
come  alive." 

Having  no  reply  to  this,  Adams  went  back 
to  the  matter  of  night  shifts. 

"If  you  will  authorize  it,  I'll  put  a  night 
gang  on  and  boss  it  myself.  What  do  you 
say?" 

"I  say  you  are  no  end  of  a  good  fellow, 
Morty.    And  that's  the  plain  fact.    I'll  do  as 
much  for  you  some  time." 
133 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

"I'll  be  smashed  if  you  will — you'll  never 
get  the  chance.  When  I  let  a  pretty  girl 
make  a  fool  of  me — " 

But  the  door  of  the  dinkey  slammed  behind 
the  outgoing  one,  and  the  prophet  of  evil  was 
left  to  organize  his  night  assault  on  the  shale- 
slide,  and  to  command  it  as  best  he  could. 

So,  as  we  say,  the  days,  days  of  stubborn 
toil  with  the  enthusiasm  taken  out,  slipped 
away  unfruitful.  Of  the  entire  Utah  force 
Adams  alone  held  himself  up  to  the  mark,  and 
being  only  second  in  command,  he  was  unable 
to  keep  the  bad  example  of  the  chief  from 
working  like  a  leaven  of  inertness  among  the 
men.  Branagan  voiced  the  situation  in  rich 
brogue  one  evening  when  Adams  had  exhaust 
ed  his  limited  vocabulary  of  abuse  on  the  force 
for  its  apathy.  "  'Tis  no  use,  ava,  Misther 
Adams.  If  you  was  the  boss  himself  'twould 
be  you  as  would  put  the  comether  on  thim  too 
quick.  But  it's  'like  masther,  like  mon.'  The 
b'ys  all  know  that  Misther  Winton  don't  care 
a  damn ;  and  they'll  not  be  hurtin'  thimselves 
wid  the  wurrk." 


THE      BLOCK     SIGNAL 

And  the  Rajah?  Between  his  times  of 
smoking  high-priced  cigars  with  Winton  in 
the  lounging-room  of  the  Rosemary,  he  was 
swearing  Jubilates  in  the  privacy  of  his  work 
ing-den  state-room,  having  tri-daily  weather 
reports  wired  to  him  by  way  of  Carbonate  and 
Argentine  station,  and  busying  himself  in  the 
intervals  with  sending  and  receiving  sundry 
mysterious  telegrams  in  cipher. 

Thus  Mr.  Somerville  Darrah,  all  going 
well  for  him  until  one  fateful  morning  when 
he  made  the  mistake  of  congratulating  his 
ally.  Then — but  we  picture  the  scene:  Mr. 
Darrah  late  to  his  breakfast,  being  just  in 
from  an  early-morning  reconnaissance  of  the 
enemy's  advancings ;  Virginia  sitting  opposite 
to  pour  his  coffee.  All  the  others  vanished  to 
some  limbo  of  their  own. 

The  Rajah  rubbed  his  hands  delightedly. 

"We  are  coming  on  famously,  famously, 
my  deah  Virginia.  Two  weeks  gone,  heavy 
snows  predicted  for  the  mountain  region,  and 
nothing,  practically  nothing  at  all,  accom 
plished  on  the  otheh  side  of  the  canyon.  When 
135 


A     FOOL     FOR      LOVE 

you  marry,  my  deah,  you  shall  have  a  block 
of  C.  G.  R.  preferred  stock  to  keep  you  in 
pin-money." 

"I?"  she  queried.  "But,  Uncle  Somer- 
ville,  I  don't  understand — " 

The  Rajah  laughed. 

"That  was  a  very  pretty  blush,  my  deah. 
Bless  your  innocent  soul,  if  I  were  young 
Misteh  Winton,  Pm  not  sure  but  I  should  con- 
sideh  the  game  -well  lost." 

She  was  gazing  at  him  wide-eyed  now,  and 
the  blush  had  left  a  ~>  illor  behind  it. 

"You  mean  that  1— that  I—" 

"I  mean  that  you  are  a  helpeh  worth  hav 
ing,  Miss  Carteret.  Anotheh  time  Misteh 
Winton  won't  pay  cou't  to  a  cha'ming  young 
girl  and  try  to  build  a  railroad  at  one  and  the 
same  moment,  I  fancy.  Hah !" 

The  startled  eyes  veiled  themselves  swiftly, 
and  Virginia's  voice  sank  to  its  softest  ca 
dence. 

"Have  I  been  an  accomplice,"  she  began., 
"in  this — this  despicable  thing,  Uncle  Somer- 
ville?" 

136 


THE      BLOCK     SIGNAL 

Mr.  Darrah  began  a  little  to  see  his  mis 
take. 

"Ah — an  accomplice?  Oh,  no,  my  deah 
Virginia,  not  quite  that.  The  word  smacks 
too  much  of  the  po-lice  cou'ts.  Let  us  say 
that  Misteh  Winton  has  found  your  company 
mo'  attractive  than  that  of  his  laborehs,  and 
commend  his  good  taste  in  the  matteh." 

So  much  he  said  by  way  of  damping  down 
the  fire  he  had  so  rashly  lighted.  Then  Jas- 
trow  came  in  with  one  of  the  interminable 
cipher  telegrams  and  Virginia  was  left  alone. 

For  a  time  she  sat  at  the  deserted  break 
fast-table,  dry-eyed,  hot-hearted, thinking  such 
thoughts  as  would  come  crowding  thickly  upon 
the  heels  of  such  a  revelation.  Winton  would 
fail:  a  man  with  honor,  good  repute,  his  en 
tire  career  at  stake,  as  he  himself  had  ad 
mitted,  would  go  down  to  miserable  oblivion 
and  defeat,  lacking  some  friendly  hand  to 
smite  him  alive  to  a  sense  of  his  danger.  And, 
in  her  uncle's  estimation,  at  least,  she,  Vir 
ginia  Carteret,  would  figure  as  the  Delilah  tri 
umphant. 

137 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

She  rose,  tingling  to  her  finger-tips  with 
the  shame  of  it,  went  to  her  state-room,  and 
found  her  writing  materials.  In  such  a  crisis 
her  methods  could  be  as  direct  as  a  man's. 
Winton  was  coming  again  that  evening.  He 
must  be  stopped  and  sent  about  his  business. 

So  she  wrote  him  a  note,  telling  him  he  must 
not  come — a  note  man-like  in  its  conciseness, 
and  yet  most  womanly  in  its  failure  to  give 
even  the  remotest  hint  of  the  new  and  binding 
reason  why  he  must  not  come.  And  just  be 
fore  luncheon  an  obliging  Cousin  Billy  was 
prevailed  upon  to  undertake  its  delivery. 

When  he  had  found  Winton  at  the  shale- 
slide,  and  had  given  him  Miss  Carteret's  man 
date,  the  Reverend  Billy  did  not  return  direct 
ly  to  the  Rosemary.  On  the  contrary,  he  ex 
tended  his  tramp  westward,  stumbling  on  aim 
lessly  up  the  canyon  over  the  unsurfaced  em 
bankment  of  the  new  line. 

Truth  to  tell,  Virginia's  messenger  was  not 
unwilling  to  spend  a  little  time  alone  with  the 
immensities.  To  put  it  baldly,  he  was  be 
ginning  to  be  desperately  cloyed  with  the 
138 


THE     BLOCK     SIGNAL 

sweets  of  a  day-long  Miss  Bessie,  ennuye  on 
the  one  hand  and  despondent  on  the  other. 

Why  could  not  the  Cousin  Bessies  see,  with 
out  being  told  in  so  many  words,  that  the  heart 
of  a  man  may  have  been  given  in  times  long 
past  to  another  woman? — to  a  Cousin  Vir 
ginia,  let  us  say.  And  why  must  the  Cousin 
Virginias,  passing  by  the  lifelong  devotion  of 
a  kinsman  lover,  throw  themselves — if  one 
must  put  it  thus  brutally — fairly  at  the  head 
of  an  acquaintance  of  a  day  ? 

So  questioning  the  immensities,  the  Rever 
end  Billy  came  out  after  some  little  time  in  a 
small  upland  valley  where  the  two  lines,  old 
and  new,  ran  parallel  at  the  same  level,  with 
low  embankments  less  than  a  hundred  yards 
apart. 

Midway  of  the  valley  the  hundred-yard  in 
terspace  was  bridged  by  a  hastily-constructed 
spur  track  starting  from  a  switch  on  the  Colo 
rado  and  Grand  River  main  line,  and  crossing 
the  Utah  right  of  way  at  a  broad  angle.  On 
this  spur,  at  its  point  of  intersection  with  the 
new  line,  stood  a  heavy  locomotive,  steam  up, 
139 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

and  manned  in  every  inch  of  its  standing-room 
by  armed  guards. 

The  situation  explained  itself,  even  to  a 
Reverend  Billy.  The  Rajah  had  not  been 
idle  during  the  interval  of  dinner-givings  and 
social  divagations.  He  had  acquired  the  right 
of  way  across  the  Utah's  line  for  his  blockad 
ing  spur;  had  taken  advantage  of  Winton's 
Inalortness  to  construct  the  track;  and  was 
now  prepared  to  hold  the  crossing  with  a  live 
engine  -ind  such  a  show  of  force  as  might  be 
needful. 

Calvert  turned  back  from  the  entrance  of 
the  valley,  and  was  minded,  in  a  spirit  of  fair 
ness,  to  pass  the  word  concerning  the  new  ob 
struction  on  to  the  man  who  was  most  vitally 
concerned.  But  alas!  even  a  Reverend  Billy 
may  not  always  rise  superior  to  his  hamper- 
ings  as  a  man  and  a  lover.  Here  was  defeat 
possible — nay,  say  rather  defeat  probable — 
for  a  rival,  with  the  probability  increasing 
with  each  hour  of  delay.  Calvert  fought  it  out 
by  length  and  by  breadth  a  dozen  times  be 
fore  he  caa*.  in  sight  of  the  track  force  toiling 
140 


THE     BLOCK     SIGNAL 

at  the  shale-slide.  Should  he  tell  Winton,  and 
so,  indirectly,  help  to  frustrate  Mr.  Darrah's 
well-laid  plan?  Or  should  he  hold  his  peace 
and  thus,  indirectly  again,  help  to  defeat  the 
Utah  company  ? 

He  put  it  that  way  in  decent  self-respect. 
Also  he  assured  himself  that  the  personal  equa 
tion  as  between  two  lovers  of  one  and  the  same 
woman  was  entirely  eliminated.  But  who  can 
tell  which  motive  it  was  that  prompted  him  to 
turn  aside  before  he  came  to  the  army  of  toil 
ers  at  the  slide:  to  turn  and  cross  the  stream 
and  make  as  wide  a  detour  as  the  nature  of 
the  ground  would  permit,  passing  well  beyond 
call  from  the  other  side  of  the  canyon  ? 

The  detour  took  him  past  the  slide  in  silent 
safety,  but  it  did  not  take  him  immediately 
back  to  the  Rosemary.  Instead  of  keeping 
on  down  the  canyon  on  the  C.  G.  R.  side, 
he  turned  up  the  gulch  at  the  back  of  Argen 
tine  and  spent  the  better  half  of  the  afternoon 
tramping  beneath  the  solemn  spruces  on  the 
mountain.  What  the  hours  of  solitude  brought 
him  in  the  way  of  decision  let  him  declare  as 
10  141 


A     FOOL     FOB     LOVE 

he  sets  his  face  finally  toward  the  station  and 
the  private  car. 

"I  can't  do  it:  I  can't  turn  traitor  to  the 
kinsman  whose  bread  I  eat.  And  that  is  what 
it  would  come  to  in  plain  English.  Beyond 
that  I  have  no  right  to  go :  it  is  not  for  me  to 
pass  upon  the  justice  of  this  petty  war  be 
tween  rival  corporations." 

Ah,  William  Calvert !  is  there  no  word  then 
of  that  other  and  far  subtler  temptation? 
When  you  have  reached  your  goal,  if  reach  it 
you  may,  will  there  be  no  remorseful  looking 
back  to  this  mile-stone  where  a  word  from  you 
might  have  taken  the  fly  from  your  pot  of 
precious  ointment? 

The  short  winter  day  was  darkening  to  its 
close  when  he  returned  to  the  Rosemary.  By 
dint  of  judicious  manoeuvering,  with  a  too- 
fond  Bessie  for  an  unconscious  confederate, 
he  managed  to  keep  Virginia  from  question 
ing  him;  this  up  to  a  certain  moment  of 
climaxes  in  the  evening. 

But  Virginia  read  momentous  things  in  his 

face  and  eyes,  and  when  the  time  was  fully 
142 


THE     BLOCK     SIGNAL 

ripe  she  cornered  him.  It  was  the  old  story 
over  again,  of  a  woman's  determination  to 
know  pitted  against  a  truthful  man's  blunder 
ing  efforts  to  conceal;  and  before  he  knew 
what  he  was  about  Calvert  had  betrayed  the 
Rajah's  secret — which  was  also  the  secret  of 
the  cipher  telegrams. 

Miss  Carteret  said  little — said  nothing,  in 
deed,  that  an  anxious  kinsman  lover  could  lay 
hold  of.  But  when  the  secret  was  hers  she 
donned  coat  and  headgear  and  went  out  on  the 
square-railed  platform,  whither  the  Reverend 
Billy  dared  not  follow  her. 

But  another  member  of  the  Rosemary  group 
had  more  courage — or  fewer  scruples.  When 
Miss  Carteret  let  herself  out  of  the  rear  door, 
Jastrow  disappeared  in  the  opposite  direction, 
passing  through  the  forward  vestibule  and 
dropping  cat-like  from  the  step  to  inch  his 
way  silently  over  the  treacherous  snow-crust 
to  a  convenient  spying  place  at  the  other  end 
of  the  car. 

Unfortunately  for  the  spying  purpose,  the 
shades  were  drawn  behind  the  two  great  win- 
143 


A     FOOL,      FOR      LOVE 

dows  and  the  glass  door,  but  the  starlight  suf 
ficed  to  show  the  watcher  a  shadowy  Miss  Vir 
ginia  standing  motionless  on  the  side  which 
gave  her  an  outlook  down  the  canyon,  leaning 
out,  it  might  be,  to  anticipate  the  upcoming 
of  some  one  from  the  construction  camp  be 
low. 

The  secretary,  shivering  in  the  knife-like 
wind  slipping  dawn  from  the  bald  peaks,  had 
not  long  to  wait.  By  the  time  his  eyes  were 
fitted  to  the  darkness  he  heard  a  man  coming 
up  the  track,  the  snow  crunching  frostily  un 
der  his  steady  stride.  Jastrow  ducked  under 
the  platform  and  gained  a  viewpoint  on  the 
other  side  of  the  car.  The  crunching  foot 
falls  had  ceased,  and  a  man  was  swinging  him 
self  up  to  the  forward  step  of  the  Rosemary. 
At  the  instant  a  voice  just  above  the  spy's 
head  called  softly,  "Mr.  Winton!"  and  the 
new-comer  dropped  back  into  the  snow  and 
came  tramping  to  the  rear. 

It  was  an  awkward  moment  for  Jastrow; 
but  he  made  shift  to  dodge  again,  and  so  to 
be  out  of  the  way  when  the  engineer  drew  him- 
144 


THE     BLOCK     SIGNAL 

self  up  and  climbed  the  hand-rail  to  stand  be 
side  his  summoner. 

The  secretary  saw  him  take  her  hand  and 
heard  her  exclamation,  half  indignant,  wholly 
reproachful : 

"You  had  my  note :  I  told  you  not  to  come !" 

"So  you  did,  and  yet  you  were  expecting 
me,"  he  asserted.  He  was  still  holding  her 
hand,  and  she  could  not — or  did  not — with 
draw  it. 

"Was  I,  indeed !"  There  was  a  touch  of  the 
old-time  raillery  in  the  words,  but  it  was  gone 
when  she  added:  "Oh,  why  will  you  keep  on 
coming  and  coming  when  you  know  so  well 
what  it  means  to  you  and  your  work  ?" 

"I  think  you  know  the  answer  to  that  bet 
ter  than  any  one,"  he  rejoined,  his  voice 
matching  hers  for  earnestness.  "It  is  because 
I  love  you;  because  I  could  not  stay  away  if 
I  should  try.  Forgive  me,  dear;  I  did  not 
mean  to  speak  so  soon.  But  you  said  in  your 
note  that  you  would  be  leaving  Argentine  im 
mediately — that  I  should  not  see  you  again: 
so  I  had  to  come.  Won't  you  give  me  a  word, 
145 


A     FOOT,      FOR     LOVE 

Virginia? — a  waiting  word,  if  it  must  be 
that?" 

Jastrow  held  his  breath,  hope  dying  within 
him  and  sullen  ferocity  crouching  for  the 
spring  if  her  answer  should  urge  it  on.  But 
•when  she  spoke  the  secretary's  anger  cooled 
and  he  breathed  again. 

"No:  a  thousand  times,  no!"  she  burst  out 
passionately ;  and  Winton  staggered  as  if  the 
suddenly-freed  hand  had  dealt  him  a  blow. 


146 


SPIKED    SWITCHES 

For  a  little  time  after  Virginia's  passionate 
rejection  of  him  Winton  stood  abashed  and 
confounded.  Weighed  in  the  balance  of  the 
after-thought,  his  sudden  and  unpremeditated 
declaration  could  plead  little  excuse  in  encour 
agement.  And  yet  she  had  been  exceedingly 
kind  to  him. 

"I  have  no  right  to  expect  a  better  answer," 
he  said  finally,  when  he  could  trust  himself  to 
speak.  "But  I  am  like  other  men:  I  should 
like  to  know  why." 

"You  can  ask  that?"  she  retorted.  "You 
say  you  have  no  right:  what  have  you  done 
to  expect  a  better  answer?" 

He  shrugged.  "Nothing,  I  suppose.  But 
you  knew  that  before." 

"I  only  know  what  you  have  shown  me  dur 
ing  the  past  three  weeks,  and  it  has  proved 
147 


A      FOOL     FOR      LOVE 

that  you  are  what  Mr.  Adams  said  you  were — 
though  he  was  only  jesting." 

"And  that  is?" 

"A  faineant,  a  dilettante;  a  man  with  all 
the  God-given  ability  to  do  as  he  will  and  to 
succeed,  and  yet  who  will  not  take  the  trouble 
to  persevere." 

Winton  smiled,  a  grim  little  smile. 

"You  are  not  quite  like  any  other  woman  I 
have  ever  known — not  like  any  other  in  the 
world,  I  believe.  Your  sisters,  most  of  them, 
would  take  it  as  the  sincerest  homage  that  a 
man  should  neglect  his  work  for  his  love.  Do 
you  care  so  much  for  success,  then  ?" 

"For  the  thing  itself — nothing,  less  than 
nothing.  But — but  one  may  care  a  little  for 
the  man  who  wins  or  loses." 

He  tried  to  take  her  hand  again,  tried  and 
failed. 

"Virginia! — is  that  my  word  of  hope?" 

"No.    Will  you  never  see  the  commonplace 

effrontery  of  it,  Mr.  Winton?  Day  after  day 

you  have  come  here,  idling  away  the  precious 

hours  that  meant  everything  to  you,  and  now 

148 


SPIKED      SWITCHES 

you  come  once  again  to  offer  me  a  share  in 
what  you  have  lost.  Is  that  your  idea  of  chiv 
alry,  of  true  manhood  ?" 

Again  the  grim  smile  came  and  went. 

"An  unprejudiced  onlooker  might  say  that 
you  have  made  me  very  welcome." 

"Mr.  Winton !    Is  that  generous  ?" 

"No;  perhaps  it  is  hardly  just.  Because  I 
counted  the  cost  and  have  paid  the  price  open- 
eyed.  You  may  remember  that  I  told  you  that 
first  evening  I  should  come  as  often  as  I  dared. 
I  knew  then,  what  I  have  known  all  along: 
that  it  was  a  part  of  your  uncle's  plan  to  delay 
my  work." 

"His  and  mine,  you  mean ;  only  you  are  too 
kind — or  not  quite  brave  enough — to  say  so." 

"Yours?  Never!  If  I  could  believe  you 
capable  of  such  a  thing — " 

"You  may  believe  it,"  she  broke  in.  "It  was 
I  who  suggested  it." 

He  drew  a  deep  breath,  and  she  heard  his 

teeth   come  together  with   a   click.      It  was 

enough  to  try  the  faith  of  the  loyalest  lover: 

it  tried  his  sorely.    Yet  he  scarcely  needed  her 

149 


A     FOOL,     FOB     LOVE 

low-voiced,  "Don't  you  despise  me  as  I  de 
serve,  now?"  to  make  him  love  her  all  the 
more. 

"Indeed,  I  don't.  Resentment  and  love  can 
hardly  find  room  in  the  same  heart  at  the  same 
time,  and  I  have  said  that  I  love  you,"  he  re 
joined  quickly. 

She  went  silent  at  that,  and  when  she  spoke 
again  the  listening  Jastrow  tuned  his  ear 
afresh  to  lose  no  word. 

"As  I  have  confessed,  I  suggested  it :  it  was 
just  after  I  had  seen  your  men  and  the  sheriff's 
ready  to  fly  at  one  another's  throats.  I  was 
miserably  afraid,  and  I  asked  Uncle  Somerville 
if  he  could  not  make  terms  with  you  in  some 
other  way.  I  didn't  mean — " 

He  made  haste  to  help  her. 

"Please  don't  try  to  defend  your  motive  to 
me ;  it  is  wholly  unnecessary.  It  is  more  than 
enough  for  me  to  know  that  you  were  anxious 
about  my  safety." 

But  she  would  not  let  him  have  the  crumb 
of  comfort  undisputed. 

"There  were  other  lives  involved  besides 
150 


SPIKED      SWITCHES 

yours.  I  didn't  say  I  was  specially  afraid  for 
you,  did  I?" 

"No,  but  you  meant  it.  And  I  thought 
afterward  that  I  should  have  given  you  a  hint 
in  some  way,  though  the  way  didn't  offer  at 
the  time.  There  was  no  danger  of  bloodshed. 
I  knew — we  all  knew — that  Deckert  wouldn't 
go  to  extremities  with  the  small  force  he  had." 

"Then  it  was  only  a — a — " 

"A  bluff,"  he  said,  supplying  the  word.  "If 
I  had  believed  there  was  the  slightest  possibil 
ity  of  a  fight,  I  should  have  made  my  men  take 
to  the  woods  rather  than  let  you  witness  it." 

"You  shouldn't  have  let  me  waste  my  sym 
pathy,"  she  protested  reproachfully. 

"I'm  sorry;  truly,  I  am.  And  you  have 
been  wasting  it  in  another  direction  as  well. 
To-night  will  see  the  shale-slide  conquered 
definitely,  I  hope,  and  three  more  days  of 
good  weather  will  send  us  into  the  Carbonate 
yards." 

She  broke  in  upon  him  with  a  little  cry  of 
impatient  despair. 

"That  shows  how  unwary  you  have  been! 
151 


A     FOOL,     FOR      LOVE 

Tell  me:  is  there  not  a  little  valley  just  above 
here — an  open  place  where  your  railroad  and 
Uncle  Somerville's  run  side  by  side?" 

"Yes,  it  is  a  mile  this  side  of  the  canyon 
head.  What  about  it?" 

"How  long  is  it  since  you  have  been  up 
there?"  she  queried. 

Winton  stopped  to  think.  "I  don't  know — 
a  week,  possibly." 

"Yet  if  you  had  not  been  coming  here  every 
evening,  you  or  Mr.  Adams  would  have  found 
time  to  go — to  watch  every  possible  chance  of 
interference,  wouldn't  you?" 

"Perhaps.  That  was  one  of  the  risks  I  took, 
f  Dart  of  the  price-paying  I  spoke  of.  If  any 
thing  had  happened,  I  should  still  be  unre 
pentant." 

"Something  has  happened.  While  yon  have 
been  taking  things  for  granted,  Uncle  Somer- 
ville  has  been  at  work  day  and  night.  He  has 
built  a  track  right  across  yours  in  that  little 
valley,  and  he  keeps  a  train  of  cars  or  some 
thing,  filled  with  armed  men,  standing  there 
all  the  time !" 

152 


SPIKED     SWITCHES 

Winton  gave  a  low  whistle.  Then  he 
laughed  mirthlessly. 

"You  are  quite  sure  of  this?"  he  asked. 
"There  is  no  possibility  of  your  being  mis 
taken?" 

<eNone  at  all,"  she  replied.  "And  I  can 
only  defend  myself  by  saying  that  I  didn't 
know  about  it  until  a  few  minutes  ago. 
What  is  to  be  done?  But  stop;  you  needn't 
tell  me.  I  am  not  worthy  of  your  confi 
dence." 

"You  are;  you  have  just  proved  it.  But 
there  isn't  anything  to  be  done.  The  next 
thing  in  order  is  the  exit  of  one  John  "Winton 
in  disgrace.  That  spur  track  and  engine 
means  a  crossing  fight  which  can  be  prolonged 
indefinitely,  with  due  vigilance  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Darrah's  mercenaries.  I'm  smashed,  Misa 
Carteret,  thoroughly  and  permanently.  Ah, 
well,  it's  only  one  more  fool  for  love.  Hadn't 
we  better  go  in?  You'll  take  cold  standing 
out  here." 

She  drew  herself  up  and  put  her  hands  be 
hind  her. 

153 


A      FOOL      FOB      LOVE 

"Is  that  the  way  you  take  it,  Mr.  Winton  ?" 

The  acrid  laugh  came  again. 

"Would  you  have  me  tear  a  passion  to  tat 
ters?  My  ancestors  were  not  French." 

Trying  as  the  moment  was,  she  could  not 
miss  her  opportunity. 

"How  can  you  tell  when  you  don't  know 
your  grandfather's  middle  name?"  she  said, 
half  crying. 

His  laugh  at  this  was  less  acrid.  "Adams 
again?  My  grandfather  had  no  middle  name. 
But  I  mustn't  keep  you  out  here  in  the  cold 
talking  genealogies." 

His  hand  was  on  the  door  to  open  it  for  her. 
Like  a  flash  she  came  between,  and  her  fingers 
closed  over  his  on  the  door-knob. 

"Wait,"  she  said.  "Have  I  done  all  this — 
humbled  myself  into  the  very  dust — to  no  pur 
pose?" 

"Not  if  you  will  give  me  the  one  priceless 
word  I  am  thirsting  for." 

"Oh,  how  shameless  you  are!"  she  cried. 
"Will  nothing  serve  to  arouse  the  better  part 

of  you?" 

154 


SPIKED     SWITCHES 

"There  is  no  better  part  of  any  man  than 
his  love  for  a  woman.  You  have  aroused 
that." 

"Then  prove  It  by  going  and  building  your 
railroad,  Mr.  Winton.  When  you  have  done 
that—" 

He  caught  at  the  word  as  a  drowning  man 
catches  at  a  straw. 

"When  I  have  won  the  fight — Virginia,  let 
me  see  your  eyes — when  I  have  won,  I  may 
come  back  to  you  ?" 

"I  didn't  say  anything  of  the  kind !  But  I 
will  say  what  I  said  to  Mr.  Adams.  I  like 
men  who  do  things.  Good  night."  And  be 
fore  he  could  reply  she  had  made  him  open 
the  door  for  her,  and  he  was  left  alone  on  the 
square-railed  platform. 

In  the  gathering-room  of  the  private  car 
Virginia  found  an  atmosphere  surcharged 
with  electrical  possibilities,  felt  it  and  inhaled 
it,  though  there  was  nothing  visible  to  indicate 
it.  The  Rajah  was  buried  in  the  depths  of 
his  particular  easy-chair,  puffing  his  cigar; 
Bessie  had  the  Reverend  Billy  in  the  tete-a- 
155 


A     FOOL     FOB,     LOVE 

tete  contrivance ;  and  Mrs.  Carteret  was  read 
ing  under  the  Pintsch  drop-light  at  the  table. 

It  was  the  chaperon  who  applied  the  firing 
spark  to  the  electrical  possibilities. 

"Didn't  I  hear  you  talking  to  some  one  out 
on  the  platform,  Virginia?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,  it  was  Mr.  Winton.  He  came  to  make 
his  excuses." 

Mr.  Somerville  Darrah  awoke  out  of  his  to 
bacco  reverie  with  a  start. 

"Hah !"  he  said  fiercely.  Then,  in  his  most 
courteous  phrase :  "Did  I  undehstand  you  to 
say  that  Misteh  Winton  would  not  faveh  us 
to-night,  my  deah  Virginia?" 

"He  could  not.  He  has  come  upon — upon 
some  other  difficulty,  I  believe,"  she  stam 
mered,  steering  a  perilous  course  among  the 
rocks  of  equivocation. 

"Mmph!"  said  the  Rajah,  rising.  "Ah — 
where  is  Jastrow?" 

The  obsequious  one  appeared,  imp-like,  at 
the  mention  of  his  name,  and  received  a  curt 
order. 

"Go  and  find  Engineer  McGrath  and  his 
15G 


SPIKED     SWITCHES 

fireman.  Tell  him  I  want  the  engine  instant 
ly.  Move,  seh !" 

Virginia  retreated  to  her  state-room.  In  a 
few  minutes  she  heard  her  uncle  go  out;  and 
shortly  afterward  the  Rosemary's  engine 
shook  itself  free  of  the  car  and  rumbled  away 
westward.  At  that,  Virginia  went  back  to 
the  others  and  found  a  book.  But  if  waiting 
inactive  were  difficult,  reading  was  blankly 
impossible. 

"Goodness!"  she  exclaimed  impatiently  at 
last.  "How  hot  you  people  keep  it  in 
here!  Cousin  Billy,  won't  you  take  a  turn 
with  me  on  the  station  platform?  I  can't 
breathe!" 

Calvert  acquiesced  eagerly,  scenting  an  op 
portunity.  But  when  they  were  out  under  the 
frosty  stars  he  had  the  good  sense  to  walk  her 
up  and  down  in  the  healing  silence  and  dark 
ness  for  five  full  minutes  before  he  ventured  to 
say  what  was  in  his  mind. 

When  he  spoke  it  was  earnestly  and  to  the 
purpose,  not  without  eloquence.  He  loved 
her ;  had  always  loved  her,  he  thought.  Could 
11  157 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

she  not,  with  time  and  the  will  to  try,  learn  to 
love  him? — not  as  a  cousin? 

She  turned  quickly  and  put  both  hands  on 
his  shoulders. 

"Oh,  Cousin  Billy— don't!"  she  faltered 
brokenly ;  and  he,  seeing  at  once  that  he  had 
played  the  housebreaker  where  he  would  fain 
have  been  the  welcome  guest,  took  his  pun 
ishment  manfully,  drawing  her  arm  in  his 
and  walking  her  yet  other  turns  up  and  down 
the  long  platform  until  his  patience  and  the 
silence  had  wrought  their  perfect  work. 

"Does  it  hurt  much?"  she  asked  softly, 
after  a  long  time. 

"You  would  have  to  change  places  with  me 
to  know  just  how  much  it  hurts,"  he  answered. 
"And  yet  you  haven't  left  me  quite  desolate, 
Virginia.  I  still  have  something  left — all 
I've  ever  had,  I  fancy." 

"And  that  is—" 

"My  love  for  you,  you  know.     It  isn't  at 
all  contingent  upon  your  yes  or  no;  or  upon 
possession — it  never  has  been,  I  think.    It  has 
never  asked  much  except  the  right  to  be." 
158 


SPIKED     SWITCHES 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  she 
said :  "Cousin  Billy,  I  do  believe  that  you  are 
the  best  man  that  ever  lived.  And  I  am 
ashamed — ashamed !" 

"What  for?" 

"If  I  have  spoiled  you,  ever  so  little,  for 
some  truer,  worthier  woman." 

"You  haven't,"  he  responded ;  "you  mustn't 
take  that  view  of  it.  I  am  decently  in  love 
with  my  work — a  work  that  not  a  few  wise 
men  have  agreed  could  best  be  done  alone.  I 
don't  think  there  will  be  any  other  woman. 
You  see,  there  is  only  one  Virginia.  Shall  we 
go  in  now  ?" 

She  nodded,  but  when  they  reached  the 
Rosemary  the  returning  engine  was  rattling 
down  upon  the  open  siding.  Virginia  drew 
back. 

"I  don't  want  to  meet  Uncle  Somerville 
just  now,"  she  confessed.  "Can't  we  climb 
up  to  the  observation  platform  at  the  other 
end  of  the  car?" 

He  said  yes,  and  made  the  affirmative  good 
by  lifting  her  in  his  arms  over  the  high  rail- 
159 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

ing.     Once  safely  on  the  car,  she  bade  him 
leave  her. 

"Slip  in  quietly  and  they  won't  notice,"  she 
said.  "I'll  come  presently." 

Calvert  obeyed,  and  Virginia  stood  alone 
in  the  darkness.  Down  in  the  Utah  construc 
tion  camp  lights  were  darting  to  and  fro; 
and  before  long  she  heard  the  hoarse  puffs  of 
the  big  octopod,  betokening  activities. 

She  was  shivering  a  little  in  the  chill  wind 
sliding  down  from  the  snow-peaks,  yet  she 
would  not  go  in  until  she  had  made  sure.  In 
a  little  time  her  patience  was  rewarded.  The 
huge  engine  came  storming  up  the  grade  on 
the  new  line,  pushing  its  three  flat-cars,  which 
were  black  with  clinging  men.  On  the  car 
nearest  the  locomotive,  where  the  dazzling 
beam  of  the  headlight  pricked  him  out  for 
her,  stood  Winton,  braced  against  the  lurch- 
ings  of  the  train  over  the  uneven  track. 

"God  speed  you,  my — love !"  she  murmured 
softly ;  and  when  the  gloom  of  the  upper  can 
yon  cleft  had  engulfed  man  and  men  and 
storming  engine  she  turned  to  go  in. 
160 


SPIKED      SWITCHES 

She  was  groping  for  the  door-knob  in  the 
darkness  made  thicker  by  the  glare  of  the 
passing  headlight  when  a  voice,  disembodied 
for  the  moment,  said:  "Wait  a  minute,  Miss 
Carteret ;  I'd  like  to  have  a  word  with  you." 

She  drew  back  quickly. 

"Is  it  you,  Mr.  Jastrow?  Let  me  go  in, 
please." 

"In  one  moment.  I  have  something  to  say 
to  you — something  you  ought  to  hear." 

"Can't  it  be  said  on  the  other  side  of  the 
door?  I  am  cold — very  cold,  Mr.  Jastrow." 

It  was  his  saving  hint,  but  he  would  not 
take  it. 

"No,  it  must  be  said  to  you  alone.  We 
have  at  least  one  thing  in  common,  Miss  Car 
teret — you  and  I:  that  is  a  proper  apprecia 
tion  of  the  successful  realities.  I — ' 

She  stopped  him  with  a  quick  little  gesture 
of  impatience. 

"Will  you  be  good  enough  to  stand  aside 
and  let  me  go  in  ?" 

The  keen  breath  of  the  snow-caps  was  sum 
mer-warm  in  comparison  with  the  chilling 
161 


A     FOOL     FOE.     LOVE 

icincss  of  her  manner;  but  the  secretary  went 
on  unmoved: 

"Success  is  the  only  thing  worth  while  in 
this  world.  Winton  will  fail,  but  I  shan't. 
And  when  I  do  succeed,  I  shall  marry  a 
woman  who  can  wear  the  purple  most  becom 
ingly." 

"I  hope  you  may,  I'm  sure,"  she  answered 
wearily.  "Yet  you  .will  excuse  me  if  I  say 
that  I  don't  understand  how  it  concerns  me, 
or  why  you  should  keep  me  out  here  in  the 
cold  to  tell  me  about  it." 

"Don't  you?  It  concerns  you  very  nearly. 
You  are  the  woman,  Miss  Carteret." 

"Indeed?    And  if  I  decline  the  honor?" 

The  contingency  was  one  for  which  the 
suitor  seemed  not  entirely  prepared.  Yet  he 
evinced  a  willingness  to  meet  the  hypothesis 
in  a  spirit  of  perfect  candor. 

"You  wouldn't  do  that,  definitely,  I  fancy. 
It  would  be  tantamount  to  driving  me  to  ex 
tremities." 

"If  you  will  tell  me  how  I  can  do  it  'defi 
nitely,'  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  drive  you 
162 


SPIKED     SWITCHES 

to  extremities,  or  anywhere  else  out  of  my 
way,"  she  said  frigidly. 

"Oh,  I  think  not,"  he  rejoined.  "You 
wouldn't  want  me  to  go  and  tell  Mr.  Darrah 
how  you  have  betrayed  him  to  Winton.  I 
had  the  singular  good  fortune  to  overhear 
your  conversation — yours  and  Winton's,  you 
know ;  and  if  Mr.  Darrah  knew,  he  would  cut 
you  out  of  his  will  with  very  little  compunc 
tion,  don't  you  think?  And,  really,  you 
mustn't  throw  yourself  away  on  that  Senti 
mental  Tommy  of  an  engineer,  Miss  Virginia. 
He'll  never  be  able  to  give  you  the  position 
you're  fitted  for." 

Since  French  was  a  dead  language  to  Mr. 
Arthur  Jastrow,  he  never  knew  what  it  was 
that  Miss  Carteret  named  him.  But  she  left 
him  in  no  doubt  as  to  her  immediate  purpose. 

"If  that  be  the  case,  we  would  better  go 
and  find  my  uncle  at  once,"  she  said  in  her 
softest  tone;  and  before  he  could  object  she 
had  led  the  way  to  the  Rajah's  working-den 
state-room. 

Mr.  Darrah  was  deep  in  one  of  the  cipher 
163 


A     TOOL     FOR     LOVE 

telegrams  when  they  entered,  and  he  looked 
up  to  glare  fiercely  at  one  and  then  the  other 
of  the  intruders.  Virginia  gave  her  perse 
cutor  no  time  to  lodge  his  accusation. 

"Uncle  Somerville,  Mr.  Winton  was  hers 
an  hour  ago,  as  you  know,  and  I  told  him 
what  you  had  done — what  I  had  helped  you 
do.  Also,  I  sent  him  about  his  business: 
which  is  to  win  his  railroad  fight  if  he  can. 
Mr.  Jastrow  overheard  the  conversation,  pur 
posely,  and  as  he  threatens  to  turn  informer, 
I  am  saving  him  the  trouble.  Perhaps  I 
ought  to  add  that  he  offered  to  hold  his  peace 
if  I  would  promise  to  marry  him." 

What  the  unlucky  Jastrow  might  have  said 
in  his  own  behalf  is  not  to  be  here  set  down  in 
peaceful  black  and  white.  With  the  final 
word  of  Virginia's  explanation  the  fierce  old 
master  of  men  was  up  and  clutching  for  the 
secretary's  throat,  and  the  working  comple 
ment  of  the  Rosemary  suffered  instant  loss. 

"You'll  spy  upon  a  membeh  of  my  family, 
will  you,  seh!"  he  stormed.  "Out  with  you, 
bag  and  baggage,  bef  o'  I  lose  my  tempeh  and 
164 


SPIKED      SWITCHES 

forget  what  is  due  to  this  young  lady  you 
have  insulted,  seh,  with  your  infamous  pro 
posals!  Faveh  me  instantly,  while  you  have 
a  leg  to  run  with !  Go !" 

Jastrow  disappeared;  and  when  the  door 
closed  behind  him  Virginia  faced  her  irate 
clan-chief  bravely. 

"He  was  a  spy,  and  he  would  have  been  a 
traitor.  But  I  am  little  better.  What  will  you 
do  to  me?" 

The  Rajah's  wrath  evaporated  quickly, 
and  a  shrewd  smile,  not  unkindly,  wrinkled 
the  ruddy  old  face. 

"So  it  was  a  case  of  the  trappeh  trapped, 
was  it,  my  deah  ?  I'm  sorry — right  sorry.  I 
might  have  known  how  it  would  be ;  a  young- 
eh  man  would  have  known.  But  you  have 
done  no  unpahdonable  mischief :  Misteh  Win- 
ton  would  have  found  out  for  himself  in  a 
few  hours,  and  we  are  ready  for  him  now." 

"Oh,  dear!  Then  he  will  be  beaten?" 

"Unquestionably.  Faveh  me  by  going  to 
bed,  my  deah.  Your  roses  will  suffeh  sadly 
for  all  this  excitement,  I  feah.  Good  night." 
165 


XI 


THE    EIGHT    OF    WAY 

It  seemed  to  Virginia  that  she  had  but  just 
fallen  asleep  when  she  was  rudely  awakened 
by  the  jar  and  grind  of  the  Rosemary's 
wheels  on  snow-covered  rails.  Drawing  the 
curtain,  she  found  that  a  new  day  was  come, 
gray  and  misty  white  in  the  gusty  swirl  of  a 
mountain  snow-squall. 

Without  disturbing  the  sleeping  Bessie,  she 
dressed  quickly  and  slipped  out  to  see  what 
the  early-morning  change  of  base  portended. 
The  common  room  was  empty  when  she  en 
tered  it,  but  before  she  could  cross  to  the  door 
the  Reverend  Billy  came  in,  stamping  the 
snow  from  his  feet. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked  eagerly.  "Are  we 
off  for  California?" 

"No,  it's  some  more  of  the  war.  Winton 
166 


THE     EIGHT     OP     WAY 

/as  outgeneraled  us.  During  the  night  he 
pushed  his  track  up  to  the  disputed  crossing, 
'rushed'  the  guarded  engine,  and  ditched  it." 

Virginia  felt  that  she  ought  to  be  decorous 
ly  sorry  for  relationship's  sake,  but  the  effort 
ended  in  a  little  paean  of  joy. 

"But  Uncle  Somerville — what  will  he  do?" 

"He  is  with  McGrath  on  the  engine,  get 
ting  himself — and  us — to  the  front  in  a  hur 
ry,  as  you  perceive." 

"Isn't  it  too  late  to  stop  Mr.  Winton  now  ?" 

"I  don't  know.  From  -what  I  could  over 
hear  I  gathered  that  the  ditched  engine  is 
still  in  the  way ;  that  they  are  trying  to  roll 
it  over  into  the  creek.  Bless  me!  McGrath 
is  getting  terribly  reckless !" — this  as  a  spite 
ful  lurch  of  the  car  flung  them  both  across  the 
compartment. 

"Say  Uncle  Somerville,"  she  amended. 
"Don't  charge  it  to  Mr.  McGrath.  Can't  we 
go  out  on  the  platform?" 

"It's  as  much  as  your  life  is  worth,"  he  as 
serted,  but  he  opened  the  door  for  her. 

The  car  was  backing  swiftly  up  the  grade 
167 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

with  the  engine  behind  serving  as  a  "pusher." 
At  first  the  fiercely-driven  snow-whirl  made 
Virginia  gasp.  Then  the  speed  slackened  and 
she  could  breathe  and  see. 

The  shrilling  wheels  were  tracking  around 
a  curve  into  a  scanty  widening  of  the  canyon. 
To  the  left,  on  the  rails  of  the  new  line,  the 
big  octopod  was  heaving  and  grunting  in  the 
midst  of  an  army  of  workmen  swarming  thick 
upon  the  overturned  guard  engine. 

"Goodness!  it's  like  a  battle!"  she  shud 
dered.  As  she  spoke  the  Rosemary  stopped 
with  a  jerk  and  McGrath's  fireman  darted 
past  to  set  the  spur-track  switch. 

The  points  were  snow-clogged,  and  the 
fireman  wrestled  with  the  lever,  saying  words. 
The  delay  was  measurable  in  heart-beats,  but 
it  sufficed.  The  big  octopod  coughed  thrice 
like  a  mighty  giant  in  a  consumption;  the 
clustering  workmen  scattered  like  chaff  to  a 
ringing  shout  of  "Stand  clear!"  and  the  ob 
structing  mass  of  iron  and  steel  rolled,  wal 
lowing  and  hissing,  into  the  stream. 

"Rails  to  the  front !  Hammermen !"  yelled 
168 


THE     RIGHT     OF     WAY 

Winton;  and  the  scattered  force  rallied  in 
stantly. 

But  now  the  wrestling  fireman  had  thrown 
the  switch,  and  at  the  Rajah's  command  the 
Rosemary  shot  out  on  the  spur  to  be  thrust 
with  locked  brakes  fairly  into  the  breach  left 
defenseless  by  the  ditched  engine.  With  a 
mob-roar  of  wrath  the  infuriated  track-layers 
made  a  rush  for  the  new  obstruction.  But 
Winton  was  before  them. 

"Hold  on !"  he  shouted,  bearing  them  back 
with  outflung  arms.  "Hold  on,  men,  for 
God's  sake !  There  are  women  in  that  car !" 

The  wrathful  wave  broke  and  eddied  mur 
murous  while  a  square-shouldered  old  man 
with  fierce  eyes  and  huge  white  mustaches, 
and  with  an  extinct  cigar  between  his  teeth, 
clambered  down  from  the  Rosemary's  engine 
to  say: 

"Hah!  a  ratheh  close  connection,  eh,  Mis- 
teh  Winton?  Faveh  me  with  a  match,  if  you 
please,  seh.  May  I  assume  that  you  won't 
tumble  my  private  car  into  the  ditch?" 

Winton  was  white-hot,  but  he  found  a  light 
169 


A     FOOL     FOB-     LOVE 

for  the  Rajah's  cigar,  easing  his  mind  only 
as  he  might  with  Virginia  looking  on. 

"I  shall  be  more  considerate  of  the  safety 
of  the  ladies  than  you  seem  to  be,  Mr.  Dar- 
rah,"  he  retorted.  "You  are  taking  long 
chances  in  this  game,  sir." 

The  Rajah's  laugh  rumbled  deep  in  his 
chest.  "Not  so  vehy  much  longer  than  you 
have  been  taking  during  the  past  fo'tnight, 
my  deah  seh.  But  neveh  mind;  all's  fair  in 
love  or  war,  and  we  appeah  to  be  having  a 
little  of  both  now  up  heah  in  Qua'tz  Creek, 
hah?" 

Winton  flushed  angrily.  It  was  no  light 
thing  to  be  mocked  before  his  men,  to  say 
nothing  of  Miss  Carteret  standing  within 
arm's  reach  on  the  railed  platform  of  the 
Rosemary. 

"Perhaps  I  shall  give  you  back  that  word 
before  we  are  through,  Mr.  Darrah,"  he 
snapped.  Then  to  the  eddying  mob-wave: 
"Tools  up,  boys.  We  camp  here  for  break 
fast.  Branagan,  send  the  Two-fifteen  down 
for  the  cook's  outfit." 

170 


THE     RIGHT     OF     WAT 

The  Rajah  dropped  his  cigar  butt  in  the 
snow  and  trod  upon  it. 

"Possibly  you  will  f aveh  us  with  your  com 
pany  to  breakfast  in  the  Rosemary,  Misteh 
Winton — you  and  Misteh  Adams.  No? 
Then  I  bid  you  a  vehy  good  morning,  gentle 
men,  and  hope  to  see  you  lateh."  And  he 
swung  up  to  the  steps  of  the  private  car. 

Half  an  hour  afterward,  the  snow  still 
whirling  dismally,  Winton  and  Adams  were 
cowering  over  a  handful  of  hissing  embers, 
drinking  their  commissary  coffee  and  munch 
ing  the  camp  cook's  poor  excuse  for  a  break 
fast. 

"Jig's  up  pretty  definitely,  don't  you 
think?"  said  Adams,  with  a  glance  around  at 
the  idle  track  force  huddling  for  shelter  un 
der  the  lee  of  the  flats  and  the  octopod. 

Winton  shook  his  head  and  groaned.  "I'm 
a  mined  man,  Morty." 

Adams  found  his  cigarette  case. 

"I  guess  that's  so,"  he  said  quice  heartless 
ly.  Then:  "Hello!  what  is  our  friend  the 
enemy  up  to  now?" 

171 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

McGrath's  fireman  was  uncoupling  the  en 
gine  from  the  Rosemary,  and  Mr.  Somer- 
ville  Darrah,  complacently  lighting  his  after- 
breakfast  cigar,  came  across  to  the  hissing 
ember  fire. 

"A  word  with  you,  gentlemen,  if  you  will 
faveh  me,"  he  began.  "I  am  about  to  run 
down  to  Argentine  on  my  engine,  and  I  pro 
pose  leaving  the  ladies  in  your  cha'ge,  Misteh 
Winton.  Will  you  give  me  your  word  of 
honeh,  seh,  that  they  will  not  be  annoyed  in 
my  absence?" 

Winton  sprang  up,  losing  his  temper 
again. 

"It's — well,  it's  blessed  lucky  that  you 
know  your  man,  Mr.  Darrah!"  he  exploded. 
"Go  on  about  your  business — which  is  to 
bring  another  army  of  deputy-sheriffs  down 
on  us,  I  take  it.  You  know  well  enough  that 
no  man  of  mine  will  lay  a  hand  on  your  car 
so  long  as  the  ladies  are  in  it." 

The  Rajtiu  thanked  him,  dismissed  the  mat 
ter  with  a  Chesterfieldian  wave  of  his  hand, 
climbed  to  has  place  in  the  cab,  and  the  engine 
172 


THE     EIGHT     OF     WAY 

shrilled  away  around  the  curve  and  disap 
peared  in  the  snow-wreaths. 

Adams  rose  and  stretched  himself. 

"By  Jove!  when  it  comes  to  cheek,  pure 
and  unadulterated,  commend  me  to  a  Vir 
ginia  gentleman  who  has  acquired  the  proper 
modicum  of  Western  bluff,"  he  laughed. 
Then,  with  a  cavernous  yawn  dating  back  to 
the  sleepless  night:  "Since  there  is  nothing 
immediately  pressing,  I  believe  I'll  go  and 
call  on  the  ladies.  Won't  you  come  along  for 
awhile?" 

"No!"  said  Winton  savagely;  and  the  as 
sistant  lounged  off  by  himself. 

Some  little  time  afterward  Winton,  gloom 
ing  over  his  handful  of  spitting  embers,  saw 
Adams  and  Virginia  come  out  to  stand  to 
gether  on  the  observation  platform  of  the 
Rosemary.  They  talked  long  and  earnestly, 
and  when  Winton  was  beginning  to  add  the 
dull  pang  of  unreasoning  jealousy  to  his 
other  hurtings,  Adams  beckoned  him.  He 
went,  not  unwillingly,  or  altogether  willingly. 

"I  should  think  you  might  come  and  say 
12  173 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

'Good  morning*  to  me,  Mr.  Winton.    I'm  not 
Uncle  Somerville,"  said  Miss  Carteret. 

Winton  said  "Good  morning,"  not  too 
graciously,  and  Adams  mocked  him. 

"Besides  being  a  bear  with  a  sore  head, 
Miss  Carteret  thinks  you're  not  much  of  a 
hustler,  Jack,"  he  said  coolly.  "She  knows 
the  situation;  knows  that  you  were  stupid 
enough  to  promise  not  to  lay  hands  on  the 
car  when  we  could  have  pushed  it  out  of  the 
way  without  annoying  anybody.  None  the 
less,  she  thinks  that  you  might  find  a  way  to 
go  on  building  your  railroad  without  break 
ing  your  word  to  Mr.  Darrah." 

Winton  put  his  sore-heartedness  far 
enough  behind  him  to  smile  and  say:  "Per 
haps  Miss  Virginia  will  be  good  enough  to 
tell  me  how." 

"I  don't  know  how,"  she  rejoined  quickly. 
"And  you'd  only  laugh  at  me  if  I  should  tell 
you  what  I  thought  of." 

"You  might  try  it  and  see,"  he  ventured. 
"I'm  desperate  enough  to  take  suggestions 
from  any  one." 

174 


THE     EIGHT     OP     WAY 

"Tell  me  something  first:  is  your  railroad 
obliged  to  run  straight  along  in  the  middle  of 
this  nice  little  ridge  you've  been  making  for 
it?" 

"Why — no;  temporarily,  it  can  run  any 
where.  But  the  problem  is  to  get  the  track 
laid  beyond  this  crossing  before  your  uncle 
gets  back  with  a  trainload  of  armed  guards." 

"Any  kind  of  track  would  do,  wouldn't  it? 
— just  to  secure  the  crossing?" 

"Certainly;  anything  that  would  hold  the 
weight  of  the  octopod.  We  shall  have  to  re 
build  most  of  the  line,  anyway,  as  soon  as  the 
frost  comes  out  of  the  ground  in  the  spring." 

The  brown  eyes  became  far-seeing. 

"I  was  thinking,"  she  said  musingly. 
**There  is  no  time  to  make  another  nice  little 
ridge.  But  you  have  piles  and  piles  of  logs 
over  there," — she  meant  the  cross-ties, — 
"couldn't  you  build  a  sort  of  cobhouse  ridge 
with  those  between  your  track  and  Uncle's, 
and  cross  behind  the  car?  Don't  laugh, 
please." 

But  Winton  was  far  enough  from  laughing 
175 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

at  her.  Why  so  simple  an  expedient  had  not 
suggested  itself  instantly  he  did  not  stop  to 
inquire.  It  was  enough  that  the  Heaven-born 
idea  had  been  given. 

"Down  out  of  that,  Morty !"  he  cried.  "It's 
one  chance  in  a  thousand.  Pass  the  word  to 
the  men ;  I'll  be  with  you  in  a  second."  And 
when  Adams  was  rousing  the  track  force  with 
the  bawling  shout  of  " ' Ev-erybody /"  Winton 
looked  up  into  the  brown  eyes. 

"My  debt  to  you  was  already  very  great: 
I  owe  you  more  now,"  he  said. 

But  she  gave  him  his  quittance  in  a  whip- 
like  retort. 

"And  you  will  stand  here  talking  about  it 
when  every  moment  is  precious?  Go!"  she 
commanded ;  and  he  went. 

So  now  we  are  to  conceive  the  maddest  ac 
tivity  leaping  into  being  in  full  view  of  the 
watchers  at  the  windows  of  the  private  car. 
Winton's  chilled  and  sodden  army,  welcom 
ing  any  battle-cry  of  action,  flew  to  the  work 
with  a  will.  In  a  twinkling  the  corded  piles 
of  cross-ties  had  melted  to  reappear  in  cob- 
176 


THE     EIGHT     OF     WAY 

house  balks  bridging  an  angle  from  the  Utah 
embankment  to  that  of  the  spur  track  in  the 
rear  of  the  blockading  Rosemary.  In  briefest 
time  the  hammermen  were  spiking  the  rails  on 
the  rough-and-ready  trestle,  and  the  Italians 
were  bringing  up  the  crossing-frogs. 

But  the  Rajah,  astute  colonel  of  industry, 
had  not  left  himself  defenseless.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  had  provided  for  this  precise  con 
tingency  by  leaving  McGrath's  fireman  in  me 
chanical  command  on  the  Rosemary.  If  Win- 
ton  should  attempt  to  build  around  the  pri 
vate  car,  the  fireman  was  to  wait  till  the  criti 
cal  moment:  then  he  was  to  lessen  the  pres 
sure  on  the  automatic  air-brakes  and  let  the 
car  drop  back  down  the  grade  just  far  enough 
to  block  the  new  crossing. 

So  it  came  about  that  this  mechanical  lieu 
tenant  waited,  laughing  in  his  sleeve,  until  he 
saw  the  Italians  coming  with  the  crossing- 
frogs.  Then,  judging  the  time  to  be  fully 
ripe,  he  ducked  under  the  Rosemary  to 
"bleed"  the  air-brake. 

Winton  heard  the  hiss  of  the  escaping  air 
177 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

above  all  the  industry  clamor ;  heard,  and  saw 
the  car  start  backward.  Then  he  had  a  flit 
ting  glimpse  of  a  man  in  grimy  overclothes 
scrambling  terror- frenzied  from  beneath  the 
Rosemary.  The  thing  done  had  been  over 
done.  The  fireman  had  "bled"  the  air-brake 
too  freely,  and  the  liberated  car,  gathering 
momentum  with  every  wheel-turn,  surged 
around  the  circling  spur  track  and  shot  out 
masterless  on  the  steeper  gradient  of  the  main 
line. 

Now,  for  the  occupants  of  a  runaway  car 
on  a  Rocky  Mountain  canyon  line  there  is 
death  and  naught  else.  Winton  saw,  in.  a 
phantasmagoric  flash  of  second  sight,  the 
meteor  flight  of  the  heavy  car;  saw  the  Rev 
erend  Billy's  ineffectual  efforts  to  apply  the 
hand-brakes,  if  by  good  hap  he  should  even 
guess  that  there  were  any  hand-brakes;  saw 
the  car,  bounding  and  lurching,  keeping  to 
the  rails,  mayhap,  for  some  few  miles  below, 
Argentine,  where  it  would  crash  headlong  into 
the  upward  climbing  Carbonate  train,  and  all 
would  end. 

178 


THE     BIGHT     OP     WAT 

In  unreasoning  misery,  he  did  the  only 
thing  that  offered:  ran  blindly  down  his  own 
embankment,  hoping  nothing  but  that  he 
might  have  one  last  glimpse  of  Virginia  cling 
ing  to  the  hand-rail  before  she  should  be  lost 
to  him  for  ever. 

But  as  he  ran  a  thought  white-hot  from  the 
furnace  of  despair  fell  into  his  brain  to  set  it 
ablaze  with  purpose.  Beyond  the  litter  of 
activities  the  octopod  was  standing,  empty  of 
its  crew.  Bounding  up  into  the  cab,  he  re 
leased  the  brake  and  sent  the  great  engine  fly 
ing  down  the  track  of  the  new  line. 

In  the  measuring  of  the  first  mile  the  de 
spair-born  thought  took  shape  and  form.  If 
he  could  outpace  the  runaway  on  the  parallel 
line,  stop  the  octopod  and  dash  across  to  the 
C.  G.  R.  track  ahead  of  the  Rosemary,  there 
was  one  chance  in  a  million  that  he  might  fling 
himself  upon  the  car  in  mid  flight  and  alight 
with  life  enough  left  to  help  Calvert  with  the 
hand-brakes. 

Now,  in  the  most  unhopeful  struggle  it  is 
often  the  thing  least  hoped  for  that  comes  to 
179 


A     FOOL     FOR     LOVE 

pass.  At  Argentine,  Winton's  speed  was  a 
mile  a  minute  over  a  track  rougher  than  a 
corduroy  wagon-road;  yet  the  octopod  held 
the  rail  and  was  neck  and  neck  with  the  runa 
way.  Whisking  past  the  station,  Winton  had 
a  glimpse  of  a  white-mustached  old  man 
standing  bareheaded  on  the  platform  and  gaz 
ing  horror-stricken  at  the  tableau;  then  man 
and  station  and  lurching  car  were  left  behind, 
and  the  fievce  strife  to  gain  the  needed  mile  of 
lead  went  on. 

Three  miles  more  of  the  surging,  racking, 
nerve-killing  race  and  Winton  had  his  hand's- 
breadth  of  lead  and  had  picked  his  place  for 
the  million-chanced  wrestle  with  death.  It 
was  at  the  C.  G.  R.  station  of  Tierra  Blanca, 
just  below  a  series  of  sharp  curves  which  he 
hoped  might  check  a  little  the  arrow-like  flight 
of  the  runaway. 

Twenty  seconds  later  the  telegraph  oper 
ator  at  the  lonely  little  way  station  of  Tierra 
Blanca  saw  a  heroic  bit  of  man-play.  The 
upward-bound  Carbonate  train  was  whistling 
in  the  gorge  below  when  out  of  the  snow- 
180 


THE     EIGHT     OP     WAY 

wreaths  shrouding  the  new  line  a  big  engine 
shot  down  to  stop  with  fire  grinding  from  the 
wheels,  and  a  man  dropped  from  the  high  cab 
to  dash  across  to  the  station  platform. 

At  the  same  instant  a  runaway  passenger 
car  thundered  out  of  the  canyon  above.  The 
man  crouched,  flung  himself  at  it  in  passing, 
missed  the  forward  hand-rail,  caught  the  rear, 
was  snatched  from  his  feet  and  trailed 
through  the  air  like  the  thong  of  a  whip-lash, 
yet  made  good  his  hold  and  clambered  on. 

This  was  all  the  operator  saw,  but  when  he 
had  snapped  his  key  and  run  out  he  heard  the 
shrill  squeal  of  the  brakes  on  the  car  and  knew 
that  the  man  had  not  risked  his  life  for  noth 
ing. 

And  on  board  the  Rosemary?  Winton, 
spent  to  the  last  breath,  was  lying  prone  on 
the  railed  platform,  where  he  had  fallen  when 
the  last  twist  had  been  given  to  the  shrieking 
brakes. 

"Run,  Calvert!     Run  ahead  and — stop — 
the — up-train!"   he   gasped;   then  the  light 
went  out  of  the  gray  eyes  and  Virginia  wept 
181 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

unaffectedly  and  fell  to  dabbling  his  fore 
head  with  handfuls  of  snow. 

"Help  me  get  him  in  to  the  divan,  Cousin 
Billy,"  said  Virginia,  when  all  was  over  and 
the  Rosemary  was  safely  coupled  in  ahead  of 
the  upcoming  train  to  be  slowly  pushed  back 
to  Argentine. 

But  Winton  opened  his  eyes  and  struggled 
to  his  feet  unaided. 

"Not  yet,"  he  said.  "I've  left  my  auto 
mobile  on  the  other  side  of  the  creek ;  and,  be 
sides,  I  have  a  railroad  to  build.  My  respects 
to  Mr.  Darrah,  and  you  may  tell  him  I'm  not 
beaten  yet."  And  he  swung  over  the  railing 
and  dropped  off  to  mount  the  octopod  and  to 
race  it  back  to  the  front. 

Three  days  afterward,  to  a  screaming  of 
smelter  whistles  and  other  noisy  demonstra 
tions  of  mining-camp  joy,  the  Utah  Short 
Line  laid  the  final  rail  of  its  new  Extension  in 
the  Carbonate  yards. 

The  driving  of  the  silver  spike  accom 
plished,  Winton  and  Adams  slipped  out  of  the 
182 


THE     EIGHT     OP     WAY 

congratulatory  throng  and  made  their  way 
across  the  C.  G.  R.  tracks  to  a  private  car 
standing  along  the  siding.  Its  railed  plat 
form,  commanding  a  view  of  the  civic  celebra 
tion,  had  its  quota  of  onlookers — a  fierce-eyed 
old  man  with  huge  mustaches,  an  athletic 
young  clergyman,  two  Bisques,  and  a  goddess. 

"Climb  up,  Misteh  Winton,  and  you, 
Misteh  Adams;  climb  up  and  join  us,"  said 
the  fierce-eyed  one  heartily.  "Virginia,  heah, 
thinks  we  ought  to  call  one  anotheh  out,  but  I 
tell  her— " 

What  the  Rajah  had  told  his  niece  is  of 
small  account  to  us.  But  what  Winton  whis 
pered  in  her  ear  when  he  had  taken  his  place 
beside  her  is  more  to  the  purpose  of  this  his 
tory. 

"I  have  built  my  railroad,  as  you  told  me 
to,  and  now  I  have  come  for  my — " 

"Hush!"  she  said  softly.  "Can't  you 
wait?" 

"No." 

"Shameless  one !"  she  murmured. 

But  when  the  Rajah  proposed  an  adjourn- 
183 


A     FOOL     FOE     LOVE 

mcnt  to  the  gathering-room  of  the  car,  and  to 
luncheon  therein,  he  surprised  them  stand 
ing  hand-in-hand  and  laughed. 

"Hah,  you  little  rebel !"  he  said.  "Do  you 
think  you  dese've  that  block  of  stock  I  prom 
ised  you  when  you  should  marry  ?  Anseh  me, 
my  deah." 

She  blushed  and  shook  her  head,  but  the 
brown  eyes  were  dancing. 

The  Rajah  opened  the  car  door  with  his 
courtliest  bow. 

"Nevertheless,  you  shall  have  it,  my  deah 
Virginia,  if  only  to  remind  an  old  man  of  the 
•time  when  he  was  simple  enough  to  make  a 
business  confederate  of  a  cha'ming  young 
woman.  Straight  on,  Misteh  Adams;  afteh 
you,  Misteh  Winton." 


184 


FAMOUS  AUTHORS  AND  THEIR  BOOKS 
INCLUDED  IN  THIS  SERIES 


ECCENTRIC  MR.  CLARK 

By  JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILET 

Author  of  "An  Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine,"  dc. 

THE  PRINCESS  ELOPES 

By    HAROLD    MacGRATH 
Author  of  "  The  Man  on  the  Box,"  tie. 

AS  THE  HART  PANTETH 

By    HALLIE    ERMINIE    RIVES 
Author  of  "The  Valiantt  of  Virginia."  tie. 

ROS ALYNDE'S  LOVERS 

By    MAURICE   THOMPSON 

Author  of  "Alice  of  Old  Vtnccnnes,"  etc. 

THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  MIST 

By    ANNA   KATHARINE   GREEN 

Author  of  "The  Leaoenworlh  Case,"  etc, 

TROLLEY  FOLLY 

By    HENRY    WALLACE   PHILLIPS 

Author  of  "Red  Saunden,"  etc. 

MOTORMANIACS 

By    LLOYD    OSBOURNB 

Author  of  "A  Person  of  Some  Importance,"  etc, 

THE  FIFTH  STRING 

By    JOHN    PHILIP    SOUSA 
Author  of  "  Pipetoum  Sandy,"  tie, 

CHIMES  FROM  A  JESTER'S  BELLS 

By    ROBERT   J.  BURDETTE 

Author  of  "Old  Time  and  Young  Tom,"  etc. 

A  GUEST  AT  THE  LUDLOW 

By    BILL   NYE 

Author  of  "Baled  Hay,"  tie. 

FOUR  IN  FAMILY 

By    FLORIDA   POPE   SUMERWELL 

A  FOOL  FOR  LOVE 

By    FRANCIS    LYNDE 

Author  of  "The  Graf  ten,"  etc. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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